Tag: Birding

Fall Colors in the Eastern Sierras

Posted in birding, Eastern Sierras, Fall Color, Landscape Photography, Nikon, PhotographyTagged , , , , , , , , 38 Comments

Copyright ©2016 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Here are several images I made while in the Eastern Sierras looking for Fall Colors.

A spillover along a creek…

Spill Over

The back-light was gorgeous on this little tree, but the broken branch looked like an arm with fingers placing the tree in the light to me.

Backlit Leaves

a little cluster of color among the sage brush…Fall Colors

After sunrise I turned around and saw some Alpine Glow on the Sierras so hustled over to the this side to make a quick image. The reflections were nice too.

Alpine Glow on Eastern Sierras from Mono Lake

I was delighted to see a little flock of White Crowned Sparrows. They’re just beginning to show up in the Bay Area to winter where I live.

White Crowned Sparrows

a valley full of color!

Fall Colors

I couldn’t resist a little close up of the new pinecone with the golden Bokeh gleaming behind it.  Feels like Christmas in October. 🙂

Pinecone Virginia Lake Area

I walked back from Misty Fall about a quarter mile to get this shot.  I’m so glad I did. I love this sign!

South Fork Bishop Creek Canyon

 

Nikon Df| Nikkor 17-35mm & 180mm lenses| Delkin Digital Film| Tripod & Hand-held

More to come…

Clark’s Grebes

Posted in Birds in the Wild, Birds of North America, Clark's Grebes, Nature Photography, Nikon, PhotographyTagged , , , , , , , , , 20 Comments

Copyright ©2016 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Today I thought I share some images from my Spring Grebe excursion.   We met at 5:45am to get out on the water to see the sun rise over the mountains and get that great light.

We were so fortunate to have a lovely morning with a rosy glow, and the Grebes were up and feeding already as well.

The male Grebes impressed me by how hard they work to feed the family.  I’ll try to convey that with some images.

The male making a fish transfer to his mate and a hungry chick poking its head out in anticipation;

Clark's Grebe Pair making fish transfer

…but that little fish was a slippery one and she dropped it, fortunately, she was able to retrieve it quickly!

Clark Grebe Pair

Here a Clark’s Grebe male is just about to make the transfer;

Clark's Grebe Male making Fish Transfer to Female

Here’s a Clark’s Grebe male feeding a fish directly to a chick. That fish looks too big for that tiny bill!

Clark's Grebe Male Transferring Fish to Grebe Chick

With several mouths to feed the male does a whole lot of fishing!

He helps with swimming lessons, and even gives the female a break by allowing the chicks to swim from Mom’s back to his. Western Grebes:  Yes, it’s a butt shot. 🙂

Western Grebes

Seeing this was so exciting and so darn adorable!!

Nikon D700| Nikkor 200-500mm| Lexar Professional Digital Film| PS CC 2015.5

Have a wonderful week-end Everyone!

More to come…

 

Draw-a-Bird-a-Day:June 2016

Posted in Draw a Bird Day, Nature, Nature Photography, Photography, WatercolorTagged , , , , , , , , , 50 Comments

Copyright ©2016 Deborah M. Zajac  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED!

I wasn’t motivated to paint for the longest time. I was planning my trip to NYC, then  while in NYC all I wanted to do was take photographs. At the end of each day there I fell into bed exhausted from walking and touring, then when I got home my son: Big Baby Boy and his lovely finance the Dark Haired Beauty came home for a long week-end , so instead of wanting to paint, or develop images I wanted to hang out with them.

…and just like that May was gone! Who wants to paint when all that is going on?

Okay, I know real painters would! Just like I was making photographs the whole time. I get it! 🙂

Late this afternoon the image of a Killdeer I took back in April of this year called me to paint it.  I don’t have clue how that happened because, my focus today has been on the letter A, and the Number 7.  For the next 25 days we’re coloring and wearing Alphabet wristlettes…a letter a day…and I’ve added a number a day to that.

I’ve been teaching #1 Grandson who is already 3 1/2 years old his letter sounds, along with letter recognition, number counting and recognition, living science, earth science, literature, manners, and appropriate behavior in our house and in public since he was born, but it’s been getting more intense the the last year. I’m so ready for this kid to read and do kindergarten math!

Phew, is it any wonder I’m exhausted when Baby Girl gets home from work?  He knows his alphabet from A to Z,  and some numbers and letters by sight, but not all the sounds, letters, or numbers by sight. It’s time to step it up! Add this to a very busy boy who wants to play and be busy with his toys, inside and out all day!

Seriously, at the end of the day uncork a bottle of wine! I’m ready to unwind! 🙂

Armed with a glass of slightly chilled Zin I began to draw my second attempt at the Killdeer. The first attempt had too many issues.

Those issues were mostly proportion, shape, and size related, and color mixing. Sigh! If I could draw all my problems with art would be nil! Seriously. NIL!  I WISH I COULD DRAW!

This is my second attempt: Still with issues related to proportion, shape and size, but much better than the first attempt.

Killdeer in Watercolor

The image is taken from a photograph  I made in April 2016. This painting isn’t nearly as cute as my photograph is.  Sigh. Perhaps a few more tries drawing it will achieve that.

I hope so!

The inspiration image here.

Oh, I forgot to add that I used my new Sennelier watercolor paints for this painting. He-Man gave me the 12 + 6 tin for my birthday last month. It’s the first time I’ve used them to paint anything besides a color chart.  I love the way the colors look on paper. There’s a wonderful vibrancy to them. I need to add a couple of greens to the kit though.

I used my Escoda Reserva #6 rd, and Mimik Kolinsky #12 brushes, and painted this in my Strathemore Mixed Media Journal.

This is part of Draw-a-Bird Day over at Laura’s Createartevery.com . To see all the bird art posted today click here.  Scroll down to the comments to see the links to all the posts shared this month. 

To read the original story of how Draw-a-Bird Day got started click here

The post is also part of Charlie O’Shields doodlewash #NatureDoolewash

Lumix FX200| Lexar Professional Digital Film| Handheld| PS CC 2015

More to come

 

 

 

Clark’s Grebes

Posted in Bird Photography, birding, Birds of North America, California, Clark's Grebes, Clear Lake CA, Grebes, Nature Photography, Northern California, Northern California Birds, PhotographyTagged , , , , , , , , , 26 Comments

Copyright ©2016 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

I spent the week-end with old friends Theresa, Dali, and Alex birding up in Clear Lake. We went to see Grebes, we hoped dancing on the water.

We booked a boat with the same tour group we used last year Eyes of the Wild with Faith as our Captain. You can read that post here.

We booked early and Faith kept us abreast of the Grebe situation on the lake on and off up until our booking day. Last week she sent me a text message saying that courting had really slowed down, but she had a surprise. Babies were early and she’d found several pair of Grebes with babies! Did we still want to come up?

Did we still want to come up? OF COURSE WE DID!  We’d go to see the chicks alone! We had hoped to get up there again last summer to see Grebe chicks, but there was a huge fire, the drought, add to that predators, well, it all added up to a low number of Grebes and not too many babies so, we didn’t go back up last year. We went this time!

Here’s my favorite image today of the babies and their parents.

Grebe Family

Dad had brought the fish, made a perfect transfer of it to Mom, and the chicks were out and exposed from their Mom’s wings peeping their heads off to get that fish!  The morning light was lovely, and I managed to keep the shot in focus and made before the boat moved up or down with a swell!

This was such an exciting, wonderful,  beautiful sight to see!

We also saw a few dances. We saw Osprey pairs with chicks, and a really pretty sunset among the most notable things we saw this past week-end.

I came home with 1700 images to cull. I’ve made my first pass and deleted about 400 already.  I’ll try to break up the posts so I don’t bore you to death with images of Grebes all the time. 🙂

Nikon D700| Nikkor 200-500mm| SunDisk Digital Film|

More to come…

 

 

 

 

California Thrasher II

Posted in Bird Photography, Birds in the Wild, Birds of North America, Nature, Nature Photography, Photography, Santa Clara CountyTagged , , , , , , 30 Comments

Copyright ©2016 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Back in March while birding and photographing flowers in Santa Cruz, CA I was thrilled to hear and see a California Thrasher for a minute…long enough to get a few images, before I spooked it trying to get a little bit closer to it.  You can see that post here.

I’ve been wishing to see one again, and be closer to it. Well, on Sunday I got my wish while birding down in the southern end of Santa Clara Valley.

California Thrasher

He was singing his little heart out!

California Thrasher

He sang for 10 minutes.  Then he stopped, gave himself a real good shake…

California Thrasher

…took a breath, and began singing again!

California Thrasher

Two little Bushtits flew into the bush beside him and began talking to him,

Bushtits

so he turned around to sing to them.

California Thrasher

There were a few more notes sung by the Bushtits to the Thrasher then they flew off. It happened so fast I was only able to get 3 shots of the Bushtits.  The image isn’t great. My lens kept wanting to focus on the branches in front of the bird rather than the little bird.

Then the Thrasher flew north. What a treat that was to hear him singing for so long.  It was the highlight of my morning.

The California Thrasher is found in California and Baja California.

I found some  California Thrasher Song sound files over on allaboutbirds.com that you can listen to here.

Nikon D700| Nikkor 200-500mm| Lexar Professional Digital Film| PS CC 2015

More to come…

 

Tribute Day May 14, 2016

Posted in Birds, Birds in the Wild, Birds of North America, Global Big Day, Macro Photography, National Train Day, Nikon, Photography, TrainsTagged , , , , , , , , , , , , 26 Comments

Copyright ©2016 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Today is National Train Day in the States, and it’s also Global Big Day 2016 in the Birding World.  I thought I’d honor both here with a short post.

Back in 2012 myself and two friends Dali, and Phil were looking for a particular waterfall called Phantom Fall in Butte county. We hiked through a woodland forest, along railroad tracks, crossed creeks, and climbed grassy hills looking for it. While on a grassy hill taking a break I heard the rumble of a train, and the low train’s whistle and turned to find the train.

I waited for it to get around the curve hoping it was a long enough train to go around the whole curve. It was a wee bit short. 🙂 Still neat to see, and hear though.

We hiked, and drove a lot of miles that day looking for that elusive waterfall, but didn’t find it. Dali and I found it a year or so later, but I’m saving that story. Not enough time has passed yet. I need to be older and the tale a bit more aged before it comes out in public.

Amtrak train

Here’s a fun macro image I made of a toy Bachman’s Engine some of you may remember from a post I made last year.  This is from a train set we used to set up around the Christmas tree when my kids were little.

Toy train

To honor Global Big Day and my love of birds here’s an image of a Western Wood Peewee.

I took this image while looking for the Gray Flycatcher posted here  The Western Wood Peewee is a “lifer” for me! That was an exciting day of Birding with 2 “life” birds added to my list.

Western Wood Peewee

I hope you all have a wonderful week-end!

Nikon D700, & Nikon Df| Nikkor 70-300mm VR, 200-500mm VR, and LensBaby

More to come…

Gray Flycatcher

Posted in birding, Birds, Birds in the Wild, Birds of North America, Flycatcher, Nature, Nature Photography, Photography, San Jose California Nature Photographer, Santa Clara County BirdingTagged , , , , , , , , , , , 22 Comments

Copyright ©2016 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

I went birding on both Saturday and Sunday this past week-end hoping to find two birds I’d never seen or photographed before. I got lucky with really good looks on the first bird on my list: The Gray Flycatcher.  A “lifer” for me!

Gray Flycatcher

There were other birders there looking for the same bird which made the experience more fun and exciting. It also helped to have several pairs of eyes, and ears on the lookout.

Gray flycatcher

It’s migrating south, and this one is further west than it’s regular migration route.

Gray Flycatcher

He was pretty far away from me, and in the shadows of the trees so I boosted my ISO to keep up my shutter speed to prevent blurring, and these images are cropped.

Sunday I went back to look for the second bird on my list, but I was not successful.  I’ll have another go this week-end if I hear it’s still in the area.

Nikon D700| Nikkor 200-500mm| Lexar Professional Digital Film| Tripod|

Note to self- take the bug spray! I got eaten alive by mosquitoes!

More to come…