Woodpecker, Yellowlegs, and a Heron

With the convenience of the sun showing up on a weekend, I took full advantage of it and got out to take some photos. Before I get too into this blog, here is a shot of the sunrise in Ladner, BC.

1/350 @ f/4.5, 100mm, ISO 250

My goal of the morning was to get some decently lit waterfowl flight shots. It was dead calm today and the birds just weren't flying so I took some typical "behavioral" shots. Here are a few.

1/1000 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 800

1/500 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 640

1/1000 @ f/5.6, 260mm, ISO 640

1/750 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 640

1/1500 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 800

After about 2 hours of not having much luck with flight shots, I decided to pack it in. As I was putting my camera in my bag, I noticed 3 other photographers all pointing their cameras in a similar direction. So I took out my camera again and pointed it towards where they were to see what they were shooting. They were photographing a Pileated Woodpecker and since I don't have any photos of them, I figured I may as well grab a few while the opportunity was there. Here's the catch though, the woodpecker was located across the pond I was at so I needed the bird to hang around for at least 5 minutes to give me enough time to walk around to it. 5 minutes doesn't seem like a long time, but think about how long a bird typically sits in one place... 5-10 seconds maybe? The odds were against me but sure enough the woodpecker was in the same place. Here are a couple shots of it.

1/3000 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 500

1/4000 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 500

1/4000 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 500

Since I was already in Ladner, Tsawwassen wasn't too far out of the way so I headed there next. I've wanted some photos of a Heron fishing for a while now and Boundary Bay has a pretty healthy population of them. They like to feed on small fish in the shallows at high tide so that's where I headed. After a bit of a hike along the beach, I found the Heron I was looking for. Unfortunately it was in no rush to eat. I waited 30 minutes for this bird to finally start moving and it was another 15 minutes after that when it finally took a stab at getting a meal. It only made one attempt at eating while I was watching it and thankfully I got it on camera...

1/2000 @ f/5.6, 360mm, ISO 400

1/2000 @ f/5.6, 250mm, ISO 400

Luckily there were other birds to photograph to help pass the time while waiting for the Heron to fish. Here are a few shots of some Greater Yellowlegs.

1/4000 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 500

1/4000 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 500

1/3000 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 400

1/3000 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 400

I'll close off this blog entry with one last photo of a Red-tailed Hawk I spotted near the parking lot.

1/1000 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 320

Thanks for reading!

www.brandonbroderick.com

First Waterfowl Shots of 2010

This past week I've been at home resting up after yet another concussion so this morning I decided to get some fresh air, and my first waterfowl photos of the new year. It was raining in North Van so I headed to Ladner in hopes of better weather. It was raining there when I first arrived but it stopped shortly after and actually cleared up a bit and presented me with some amazing light...for about 45 seconds. Okay that might be a bit of an exaggeration about how little time I had decent light, but it honestly didn't last very long.

For some reason the ducks weren't flying much today. It could have been weather related but I'm not 100% sure. I mean with the overcast conditions it wasn't optimal for flight shots anyways so I wasn't too disappointed. So without them flying, I decided to just focus on behavioral shots. Preening, fluffing their feathers, diving, stretching...stuff like that. Here are some of the shots.

1/750 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 1000

1/3000 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 640, -0.5ev

1/750 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 640

1/1000 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 640

1/1000 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 640

1/2000 @ f/5.6, 370mm, ISO 640

1/2000 @ f/5.6, 300mm, ISO 640

When the weather did finally clear for a few minutes I did happen to get a flight shot...here it is

1/3000 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 640

The rest of the photos from my day can be found here

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2916210&id=61927899276

Thanks for reading,

Brandon Broderick

www.brandonbroderick.com

Waterfowl Training Session

With winter being the optimal time to photograph waterfowl, I need to be ready for it when it arrives. Back in my last post I mentioned I was at the Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary in Ladner, BC doing a bit of a scouting run. I did take a few photos while there but I was more or less just testing the waters...bad joke, I know. Anyways yesterday and today I went back for the purpose of actually taking some pictures.

Yesterday I went from 2-4p.m. and was presented with some fairly decent light, but some pretty boring/lazy ducks. They were still doing their typical water based events, however flight was limited. And with no flying taking place, I had to photograph them doing something else. So yesterday was mostly behavioral photos.

1/1500 @ f/8, ISO 640, 400mm

Today I decided to head to Reifel for morning light. However there wasn't much. There was this layer of clouds that seemed to follow the sun across the sky, which is sub-par for photography. But, with it still being early in the waterfowl photography season, and this being a test run (making sure I know what I'm doing before the shots that count present themselves), I still decided to stay and take a few photos...642 to be exact. Now you may be asking yourself, "642 photos!?!? That's going to be a lot of editing!" And if in fact you did just ask yourself that, my answer to you is, No. 642 photos in poor lighting of some pretty lazy birds equals 3 keeper photos. And I'm still not entirely happy with those photos. If you follow my blog, you'll eventually learn that I'm really really picky about photos I decide to keep and not trash. As mentioned above, the birds were lazy again. Not much flying going on so again, I just shot random behavior stuff, such as this one of a pair of American Wigeon.

1/750 @ f/6.7, ISO 640, 350mm

Well that's about it for this post. The rest of the photos can be found here http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=109190&id=61927899276&ref=mf