Nature – Page 18 – Circadianreflections Blog

Red-Tailed Hawk: light morph

November 20, 2012November 20, 2012Posted in Birds, California, Nature, Photography, WildlifeTagged Birds, D300s, National Wildlife Refuge, Nature, Nikkor, Nikon, Photography, Red-tailed Hawk, Wildlife4 Comments

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.

Red-Tailed Hawk-Light Morph-Take Off! — Lift off!

Red Tailed Hawk light morph in flight — 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

Birding the Central Valley (naturalhistorywanderings.com)
Red-tailed Hawks – More from the Big Bend (bobzeller.wordpress.com)
Just when I thought I’d seen it all (randomthoughtsfrommidlife.wordpress.com)

American Kestrel- Female

November 11, 2012November 11, 2012Posted in Birds, California, Nature, Nikon, Photography, WildlifeTagged American Kestrel, Birding, California, D300s, Nature, Nikkor lenses, Nikon, Photography, San Luis National Wildlife Refuge, Wildlife4 Comments

American Kestrel- Female, originally uploaded by dmzajac2004-.

Via Flickr:
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

November 10, 2012December 26, 2012Posted in Birds, California, Nature, Nikon, Photography, WildlifeTagged Ducks, Nature, Nikkor lenses, Nikon D300S, Photography, Water fowl, Wildlife, wood duckLeave a comment

Catch of the Day, originally uploaded by dmzajac2004-.

Via Flickr:
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!

November 8, 2012November 8, 2012Posted in Birds, California, Nature, Nikon, Photography, WildlifeTagged D300s, Nature, Nikkor, Nikon, Peregrine Falcon, Tamron TeleconverterLeave a comment

Get a Grip!, originally uploaded by dmzajac2004-.

Via Flickr:
Copyright © 2012 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

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

Peregrine Falcon

November 2, 2012November 2, 2012Posted in Birds, California, Nature, Nikon, Photography, WildlifeTagged Birding, Nature, Nikkor, Nikon D300S, Peregrine Falcon, Photography, Wildlife1 Comment

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

Peregrine Falcon (mentalhealthed.com)
Nesting falcons may force shift in PennDOT work (triblive.com)
Peregrine Falcon, Ramble (starrtrips.wordpress.com)

Common Merganser

October 24, 2012October 24, 2012Posted in Birds, California, Nature, Photography, WildlifeTagged Birding, Common Merganser, Merced River, Nature, Nikon, Nikon D700, Photography, Water fowl, Yosemite National ParkLeave a comment

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!