Category: Birds

Red-Tailed Hawk: light morph

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Copyright © 2012 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

Several friends and I went out to Central CA to a National Wildlife Refuge to see if any Sandhill Cranes or Snow Geese had arrived and photograph them.

While on the auto-tour we spotted this Red-tailed Hawk on a post. We had a good vantage point to photograph it so we all started framing and firing our cameras which spooked him.

It was just what we hoped for. We all got some really nice shots of him taking off, and flying low in the marsh grass.

Lift off!

 

Wings up…

 

Downward flap

I needed  help identifying this Red-tail. My National Geographic bird book isn’t very clear on the Light and Dark Morphs. Thanks to my friend Dali for I.D.ing it for me. Since then I’ve purchased a new bird guide-book:  Stokes Field Guide to the Birds of North America. Between the two books I hope to be able to ID birds more easily.

Nikon D300s| Nikkor 80-200@ 200mm + Tamron 1.4x Teleconverter| f7.1| 1/2000sec| ISO 640| Manual Priority| Hand-held

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Sunrise hues and Sandhill Cranes

Posted in Birds, California, Nature, Photography, WildlifeTagged , , 1 Comment

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Copyright © 2012 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

The Sandhill Cranes are making their winter migration  from the North to the Pacific Fly-way in California’s Central Valley.  Lodi,CA was having its annual Sandhill Crane festival over the week-end of Nov. 3-4, 2012. Several friends and I went. We had a great time and spotted some great birds in addition to the Cranes. I took this photo the morning of the 4th just after the sun rose. We got up early, and drove out to the country to see the “Fly-out”. The Cranes spent the night in the fields where we were, but they spend the day in other fields where they’ll graze on corn.

My ears were filled with the sounds of honking Cranes, and geese, quacking ducks, and periodically the sounds of hundreds of wings as flocks of birds lifted off. It was an amazing morning to be alive.

Nikon D300s| Nikkor 80-200@80mm|f5.6| 1/3200| ISO 200| Manual Priority| Hand-held

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American Kestrel- Female

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American Kestrel- Female, originally uploaded by dmzajac2004-.

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Copyright © 2012 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

“Not on a wire, not on a pole, it’s a tree for me!” This is the little mantra I said today as I saw a Kestrel on a wire. Later in the morning while we were driving through an Auto-tour in San Luis National Wildlife Refuge I spotted this kestrel in a tree! I was so excited, and thrilled when I uploaded this photo. It’s the first Kestrel I’ve shot that wasn’t on a pole or wire, and the first I’ve posted I believe.
We (Rainy, Dali, Judi, and I) saw so many neat birds and photographed quite a few of them.
We saw, this Kestrel, Red-tailed Hawks, Northern Harriers, Black Phoebe’s, Sparrow’s a new one for me I need to ID, my first Merlin!, Ross Geese, Coots, Blue Herons, Egrets: mostly Great Egrets, a Kingfisher, an American Bluebird, a Burrowing Owl, Mallards, Northern Pintails, Shrike, Meadow Larks, Plovers, Ibis, Sandhill Cranes, White fronted Geese, Red-winged Blackbirds, Shovelers, and White-tail Kites. In addition we saw a Coyote,  I saw a raccoon, and  we saw a dear friend Judi. It was an amazing, fantastic, sunny, everything going our way, very good day!

Nikon D300s| Nikkor 80-200 @200mm + Tamron 1.4TC|f7.1| 1/800 sec| ISO 640| Manual Priority| Hand-held

Catch of the Day

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Catch of the Day, originally uploaded by dmzajac2004-.

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Copyright © 2012 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

This photograph of a female Wood Duck  has been marinating in my archives for sometime. I find if I come back to photos months later I find more keepers.
I want to give a huge Shout Out to my friend Rainey for showing me this spot. THANK YOU Rainey!
It was a fun afternoon.

Nikon D300s| Nikkor 80-200 @ 185mm| f5.6| 1/800 sec| ISO 500| Manual Priority| Hand-held

Get a Grip!

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Get a Grip!, originally uploaded by dmzajac2004-.

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Copyright © 2012 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

Here’s another shot of the Peregrine landing after an unsuccessful sortie.

Nikon D300s| Nikkor80-200@200mm+ Tamron 1.4T f5.6| 1/1600sec| ISO 640| Manual Priority| Hand-held

 

Peregrine Falcon

Posted in Birds, California, Nature, Nikon, Photography, WildlifeTagged , , , , , , 1 Comment

Copyright © 2012 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

I’m not sure if this is a juvenile or not. Anyone know? It was thrilling to see him. I knew he was in the area and went out last week with my photography friend Dali, but it didn’t come around that afternoon, but we did see the White Tailed Kite then. This morning Dali emailed me early and asked if I wanted to go out to look for the Peregrine again and I said, “Yes!”. We spotted it perched straight-away. We had the pleasure of observing and photographing it for a couple of hours. This is only the second time I’ve seen and photographed a Peregrine Falcon.

Nikon D300s| Nikkor 80-200@200 + Tamron 1.4x TC|f5.6| 1/600sec| ISO 640| Manual Priority|hand-held

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Common Merganser

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Copyright © 2012 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved

I’m so excited!!! After first seeing this species from afar in May 2010 on a cold morning floating with its mate on the Merced River in Yosemite I’ve been hoping to see one and be close enough to get a good photo of one within my focal range. I did see a few this past Spring, but they were too far away for me to get a good photo of one.  Finally after all this time I saw 4 this past Sunday that were well within my range!!! Yes, I am doing the Happy Dance!

Stretch!

Nikon D700| Nikkor 80-200mm@200mm| Manual Priority| Hand-held