One thing I hoped to do this year was to get some pics of fawns while they still have spots. Quite frankly, I failed miserably at trying to achieve this goal. Instead I spent most of my days chasing animals with feathers and the occasional evening looking for beaver. So tonight it was pure luck that I not only ran into a doe and a fawn, but two does each with a fawn. Though the babies are easily 70-80 pounds by now, they still have spots. Thanks Mother Nature for throwing me this bone

The Mother all Whale Watches

   

   I've been very lucky to have had some amazing experiences on whale watches. Many of the ones I've been on (as long as they were not in Rhode Island) were "once in a lifetime trips". But, none of them were better than today.

   We had Humpbacks around the boat for an hour. He saw them bubble feed, deep dive, and fin slap the surface. Highlighted by one whale breaching five times!!! We also saw Atlantic White Sided Dolphins and a few shearwaters, Common being the most abundant. Photographing a breaching whale has been on my bucketlist for years. I can't believe I crossed something off my list in 2020. 

He took the noon boat out of Plymouth on the Captain John's Whale Watch. Cost $60/ four hours. It was an amazing day. Many more photos below

Atlantic White Sided Dolphin

Great Shearwater

A photo from my garden after a morning rain. Because
you need to look at something that isn't blue.

Just a Few Photos

   Today I went to Napatree, Charlestown Breachway, and Trustom. I really didn't see anything new despite my best effort. The highlight for me was getting photo upgrades of the Forster's Tern below. Though I have photographed them before and actually got what I considered photo upgrades twice this year, today was the first time I actually photographed the eye. Forster's Tern's eyes are always hidden in that dark mask. Today I got lucky with this individual. It let me get pretty close and photograph it. I took about thirty pictures then I backed off. It never moved or flew away.

   Below the Forster's Terns were a few other photos I took. Nothing special, but it was a nice cool enjoyable day despite a couple rain showers.

Semi-palmated Sandpiper

Coopers Hawk

The hawk flying after harassing some Fish Crows

Least Sandpiper

Least Sandpiper again. It stopped to look at me because it was
listening to the sound of my camera.

I don't know why they went out on the mudflat either. But I
have seen them before and their tracks many times

A Case Study in Travel Photography- Snake Den

   The last few nights I have been watching an online course of travel photography. I have really enjoyed it picked up a few tips. The course covers everything from equipment to composing a photo to what to look for when telling the story of a place through photos. The course is taught by a National Geographic contributor. He is funny and knows his stuff.

   The two most important things I have learned so far are the horizon and what makes a great photo. First the horizon, Although the rule of thirds works in photography, it is not set in stone. If the foreground is the most interesting part of the photo, make the horizon near the top. On the other hand, if the sky is the most interesting part, such as a lightning bolt or a rainbow, or even a cool cloud formation, then have the horizon near the bottom of the photo.

   What he looks for in a great photo are light, composition, and sense of moment. Light is obvious. You need good light for a good photo. Composition is also pretty obvious, how you set up the photo. Basically what your camera sees and what you want the viewer to look at.

   Sense of moment is the tricky one. It means capturing a moment. A facial expression, a plane flying through your photo, maybe even a whale breaching ( I wish!). Something that wasn't there before and won't be there forever.

   Now, the truth is, if I ever got a dream job working for Nat Geo or Outside Magazine, it would be really hard for me. First off, I would find multiple aspects boring. For example photographing food in fancy restaurants or architecture in an old motel would bore the snot right out of my nose. Another very important part of travel photography is photographing the people and culture of a place. Not only does that not really interest me, but it would be very difficult for me to go up to strange people and ask their permission. I am too shy for that.

   Without question, my strong suit is photographing wildlife and scenery. I could do that all day everyday. If I ever get to go on my dream African Safari, I would be in heaven shooting lions, birds, and elephants. But most of those trips also spend a day in a Masi Village. I would consider that such a waste of a day I could be in the bush.

   Anyway, I went to Snake Den Farm tonight to practice some of the stuff I learned. Snake Den is a working farm but it is owned by the state. People are allowed to walk the trails. It is the best place n Rhode Island to see sparrows in the fall. Since my Sigma 150-600 lens is in the shop because I'm an idiot, tonight seemed like a nice night to play around. My goal was to "tell the story" of Snake Den through photos. The cool thing about this game is you can do it anywhere you go. I picked Snake  Den because of the human element of it being a farm. But I might go other places to "tell its story". The cool thing is, anyone can do this anytime and anywhere.

   Before I get to my photos, this isn't a 'brag" piece. In truth, I failed. Only the photos with bees, give a sense of moment. Though many of the other photos have two out of three going for them (Light and composition) they don't have a moment caught in time. Take the farmhouse, I could have taken the photo forty times and it would look exactly the same. If someone would have walked out the door, or a dog was begging to go in, it would have forever been immortalized and I would have caught a moment

   Lastly, other than a couple sunflower photos, I only took one picture of everything I looked at, I tried to force myself to see what the camera was seeing. I wanted the best angle before I pressed the shutter. Again, I failed. I missed a couple of shadows. The sky looked different in a couple photos than I thought it did.

  All these mistakes are okay. Better now then when I go on my next vacation. If I can train my eye to see things and photo ops, maybe, just maybe, I'll have a story to tell from places I visit, and not just photos of its birds.

 

Another week, another week of playing with my camera (and a short fishing report)

Since all I have posted are photos of birds lately, here is a long overdue fishing report. Ninigret Pond is full of stripers. However, they are eating tiny bay anchovies. The bait is only about 1/2 inch. There is nothing in my box that can match it. I tried flies, two inch shad bodies on small jig heads, Zoom flukes, and everything else in my bag. It was frustrating seeing all of those fish break, some of them were behind me in knee deep water.

I had the last couple of days off. I'll be honest, I didn't see nearly as many species as I hoped. I had four target birds and only saw one of them .I went to Napatree yesterday morning. Then I went to the Charlestown Breachway and spent almost the entire day there. I birded a lot but also got some blue crabs. It was a cool summer day so I enjoyed it. This morning I went back to the Breachway, but I was home by 3 pm (this includes two very frustrating hours of fishing).

 Photos below of some of the birds I saw.

This is the continuing  female King Eider. It is rare to have
in Rhode Island, especially during the summer, but she has
been around for a month

Ruddy Turnstone

Ho-hum, just another day with the mega-rare Little Stint

Semi-Palmated Plover

Greater Yellowlegs

Another Semi-Palmated Plover

Black Tern- this was my one successful target bird. I saw it
on a sandbar, but as I was beaching my kayak, so was
a family with a  German Shepard on a boat. As soon as
the dog jumped off the boat, all the terns took off. I was lucky to
get this heavily cropped photo

Despite cutting off the wing, I like the photo. This
Common Tern was fishing for the same bait as the stripers.
Tiny Bay Anchovies

 On  my way home today, I stopped at my friend Jan's house. She has at least five hummingbirds that come to her feeders and garden. I really don't have any good hummingbird photos. I asked if I could stop by today and sit and take photos. I took about 120. As you can imagine, with a bird that fast, many were blurry. Here are my favorites.