Kestrel in Flight

Happy New Year everyone! For my first post of 2011, here is a image taken last week at VCDB in Arlington. I have been trying to get some good flight shots of this kestrel lately, but have not been having much success, my flight photography skills are not good and that is a big reason for little images. It is something to work on in 2011 for sure. So here is the only half decent image I have taken so far, it is a pretty big crop so it lacks some detail.

Hope you like it.

Image Data:

1/4000s. | f/8 | ISO 800 | Fill Flash

click image to view larger size.

My Favorite Image of 2010

With the year coming to a close and a new one about to begin, I have gone back and looked at the images that I have taken through the year of 2010, which were not many I am afraid to say, and have decided to pick a favorite. The easy winner was this one of a Painted Bunting that I photographed at the nature center this summer. While not a winning shot by any means, this one is my favorite simply because it was my first good shot of this beautiful bird. I am in hopes that the new year will bring more days of being able to spend time photographing nature than I had in 2010.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone!

Image Data:

1/100s. | f/5.6 | ISO 640 | Fill Flash

click image to view larger size.

Northern Pintail in Habitat

I got this image at the reservoir last week. Ducks are extremely hard to shoot here which is a shame because there are so many species. So when this pintail floated by a hundred yards or so away, I decided to make a environment sort of image by including the reeds in the background and making the duck small in the frame. Maybe not a great shot for some, but a decent shot of a pintail is better than no shot of a pintail I say! Anyway, the weather here continues to jump from warm to cool, as Christmas approaches this weekend we should get down to the 40's and 50's, not near the temps we were seeing a year ago when we had all of that snow.

I hope that you enjoy this shot.

Image Data:

1/320th. | f/8 | ISO 200

click image to view larger.

note: I think it needs a bit of rotation, I will fix that later.

Nutria on Island

Here is another image that I took at the Village Creek beds in Arlington last week. A family of Nutria live on this small island in the middle of one of the ponds. This is another image that I took and blurred the background a bit on in Photoshop. I think blurring the bg just a little helps make the subject pop more. It does not look perfect, but I was fairly happy with it. I wish that the small long was not in the image as it distracts some from the subject, but oh well. I hope you like it.

Image Data:

1/1000s. | f/8 | ISO 500

click image to view larger.

Great Blue Heron

Here is another shot taken at the Village Creek Beds last week. This one of a great blue heron on a dead tree stump in one of the ponds. I liked the shot except for the busy background which my 100-400mm does not do a good job of blurring out from this range especially at f/8, so I did some Photoshop work and blurred the background just a bit and I think I got a natural look. What do you think? Hope you like it.

Image Data:

1/1600s. | f/8 | ISO 500

click image to view larger.

American Kestrel

I made it out to the Village Creek Beds in Arlington yesterday with my mom. Activity there was very good, we saw hundreds of ducks, a lot of sparrows, and shorebirds. I spent a bit of time watching what I believe was a Marsh Wren and hoping to get a good shot of it, which I didn't. I was very happy to get pretty close to this Kestrel as he was perched next to the road. It is my first good shot of a kestrel, so I was pretty excited to get this one. I wanted to spend more time with him and see if I could get some flight shots, but the gates were about to be locked so we had to leave. We might go back tomorrow, and I hope to get some more shots of him.

Image Data:

1/1600s. | f/8 | ISO 500 | Fill Flash

click image to view larger

Happy December

Sorry for the recent lack of posts everyone. Truth is that I haven't been out shooting in a couple of weeks, or at least it seems that long. I have been pretty busy getting some of my photos ready for the FW Nature Center. They will be displaying them in their visitors center during the month of December, which is pretty neat. I do hope to get out this week as I have been very restless to go and shoot somewhere. For now, here is a photo that I took back in January, which I know that I posted then but have since re-processed it. This was taken during the second of the two snowstorms that we had last winter. Two snowfalls in the Dallas/Fort Worth area in winter is very rare, we are more familiar with sleet which is not as fun as the white stuff! Hard to imagine that it is already December, the year has certainly flown by. Anyway, Happy December to all and I hope to be posting a lot more this month than I have been recently.