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

Another Trip to Reifel, and then some.

I headed to the Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary in Ladner, BC again this morning to hopefully get some waterfowl flight shots. However just like the last few visits, not too many birds were flying so I had to think of shots to get. After about 15 minutes of just sitting and watching the ducks, I knew what I wanted photos of. The American Coot. Probably one of the least photogenic birds I've ever come across. They're all black, have a white beak, and beady red eyes. They also have these gigantic, almost dinosaur like feet.

1/1500 @ f/5.6, ISO 640, 360mm

With some amazing light today, I decided to take the time and try to show the photo-friendly side of the Coot. This basically meant just trying to take photos of them as they dove for food...

1/2000 @ f/5.6, ISO 640, 400mm

While watching and photographing the Coots, I noticed another specie of duck was capitalizing on the Coot's feeding habits. The American Wigeon would follow the Coots around and wait for them to come out of the water after a dive, then steal their food.

1/1500 @ f/5.6, ISO 640, 400mm

After shooting the Coots for a while, I decided to give some of the other birds some attention and took a few shots of them.

1/3000 @ f/5.6, ISO 640, 220mm

On my way out of Reifel, a Red-tailed Hawk landed in a tree above me. I took a shot of it as it took off.

1/3000 @f/8, ISO 640, 400mm

From Ladner, I drove to Buntzen Lake, just north of Port Moody to see what sort of photos I could get there. It was quite cloudy there so I settled on taking a stream photo.

4.0s @ f/22, ISO 200, 17mm

I find I'm always being asked how I make the water look like it does in the above photo so in the near future I'll be doing a bit of a video lesson on how it's done.