Backyard Bird of Prey

I just received this image of a Cooper's hawk (hard to differentiate from a sharp-shinned hawk) who has his evening dinner in his talons.  Check out the scattered feathers.  The photo was sent to me by one of my park friends (Mike T.) that I met in River Bend Park today.  He took the photo locally in his backyard.  The photo is real nature and I decided to share it with you on my site.  Thanks Mike.

River Bend Park birds of Wonder

I met several friendly people from around the globe enjoying River Bend Park today.  A smile and a genuine "hello, how are you?" goes a long way.  So many interesting people to engage. It was a great people day!

Two exciting bird encounters in River Bend Park today.  A repeat sighting of an eastern screech owl in its natural habitat of a hollowed out tree.  Must be his home as I have seen the owl on two occasions in the same tree.

 



The treat of the day was the bald eagle at the nest on the Potomac River!   At least one young eaglet could also be seen in the nest from time to time during my observing period of 2 hours.  Glad the bald eagles selected this nesting site on an inaccessible island in the middle of the river.

Moon phases are beautiful

These photos of the moon were taken during the month of February, 2017 with:

                       Nikon d750
                       Nikon TC 14E II 1.4X teleconverter
                       Nikon 300mm F4D
                       1/180 sec @ f11

The weather for the past few weeks has not been optimal for night photography due to rain and clouds.  When the clouds part, the tripod is set up.  First use of this lens was outstanding.

Backyard fox

 
Sleeping fox in the afternoon.








 Big stretch after afternoon nap.

 I'm awake.  Looking for my next meal.

I see you.  I'm out of here!

Shenandoah Panorama

During the last new moon in September, I again ventured into the Shenandoah National Park at 2 AM.  Besides the usual deer, foxes, owls, and coyotes, the evening was highlighted by my first night time black bear sighting.  He wandered off into the field and I simply froze.  Need to get some bear pepper spray.  This night time photography could get dangerous.  

For this adventure I created a panorama with 23 merged

images.  The Adobe program "Lightroom" does all the hard work. I just have to take the photos in the dark with the bears.

Nikon d750 with Nikon 50mm f1.4 lens shot at f2.8

ISO 3200

10 second exposure

The image is downsized for the web.  The original panorama was over 1 gigabyte in size.

Perseid Meteor Shower August 12, 2016

The Perseid Meteor Shower was visible after the moon set at 1:09 AM on August 12.  The sky was virtually cloud free which made viewing quite spectacular.  The shower far exceeded my expectations with hundreds of shooting stars.  Enjoy the selected photos of the meteor shower over the milky way from Shenandoah National Park.

Milky Way Time Lapse

Here is a link to my first time lapse of the milky way. 

 https://vimeo.com/178187137

The streaks on the low horizon are airplanes.  The higher streaks are shooting stars.  The night was perfect for sight viewing and the photographic conditions were perfect.  The time lapse imaging consisted of 310 images obtained over approximately 90 minutes.  The data was processed in Adobe Lightroom and was downloaded onto Vimeo.  Needless to say, I am hooked on night time photography.