To the swamp – THE WALDRONS

Time was limited and I didn’t want to spend over an hour driving back and forth to a local forest. The state parks were likely to be jam-packed; it was was Memorial Day weekend in COVID-world. The light wasn’t going to be great anyway, so I drove down the road to see if a Osprey had nested at the swamp this season.

Spoiler: No.

The ground was get-your-boots-stuck-in-the-mud wet.

I walked all of the trails on the west side of the Conservancy. There were 2 osprey’s soaring overhead, but never near enough for me to capture an image, even at 300mm on a bright day. There were other birds to keep me entertained with my camera, though. Not that any of my shots were even worthy of uploading in full-res.

This little girl was in an out of her nest (in the wall under the window) every few minutes.

First, I slowly stalked this bird for 5 mins, getting closer and closer until I could get this image. Then I waited and waited for another 5, camera at the ready, prepared to try to capture the moment when it flew away. It just stayed there, enjoying the sun.

I tried to practice capturing smaller birds in flight, but I don’t ever do that and the AF on my camera body is not at all designed for that sorta work. They were all small song birds: their movements quick and unpredictable. I know that there are ways to get better images: wait to see if there is a pattern to their movement, pre-focus and let them come into my plane of focus, shoot against the sky (blah) to give the AF a chance, shoot at a smaller aperture and manual focus. Still, that is kinda like me sitting at home and knowing what a QB should do when they step to the line of scrimmage to read the defense and call an audible. It is much easier said than done in practice. Besides, that kinda shit takes a lot of practice and I don’t care enough about the subject to put in the time. I’ll settle for the challenge and the occasional lucky capture.

Finally, I did watch the herons … a lot. I had my camera and binoculars on them for 30 mins. I had the composition that I wanted in the event that a Daddy-heron flew into the seen with dinner, but it never happened before I had to get in the car and go home to eat my own.

There was room in a 4×5 crop for a bird flying into the nest from camera left or upper-camera right, but alas, it never happened. I’m not sure that the resolution after cropping would have made for a image worthy of printing anyway.

All in all – a nice day to get out, no mosquitos, and some practice with my camera. I really couldn’t complain.