I'm fortunate enough to have a 15 minute walk to work through a nature reserve that is teaming with wildlife, here are a few of the photos form the last months. As I speak there is a bald eagle on perched on the teees outside my window, but my camera is at home.
All taken with a Nikon 300mm f/4.0 and 1.4xTC on A D90.
Herons are everywhere here, I have lots of reasonable photos but I have a few with very nice evening light:
This one the light had gone so it is quite noisy, bu I managed to get less than 2m away:
This blue jay drives my cat crazy:
I live a mere 250 yards from an Osprey nest but these birds cover large distances so are not always easy to find. This one flew straight over head I was nearing my front door:
They normally perch facing the river or pond so without getting wet they aren't easy to get face-on shots:
Bald Eagles are rarer and tend to only stay in the area for 10-15 minutes every few days, but are truly magnificent
One reason they keep away is the Ospreys and Bald eagles fight a lot, as witnessed below. Another surprise encounter when walking in the nearby park I heard some screeches looked up and managed to grab this
Shallow DoF has killed the photo
. Was filming a Nutria in the shade and had the aperture wide open when these guys flew over head, I had to manually focus the birds at high speed and managed to nail the focus on the osprey but didn't have time to realize the Dof was too shallow.
The bald eagles have been known to swoop down and take the baby goslings:
But the NW pond turtles just hide in their shells:
I have some shots of an otter, nutria, kingfisher, vultures, goshawk, but are a little distant. I am told there are beaver usually, I have seen roe deer and bull snakes, and lots of birds I have no idea about. I plan to spend some summer evenings at colleagues house who has wild turkeys and barn owls on his property.
All taken with a Nikon 300mm f/4.0 and 1.4xTC on A D90.
Herons are everywhere here, I have lots of reasonable photos but I have a few with very nice evening light:
This one the light had gone so it is quite noisy, bu I managed to get less than 2m away:
This blue jay drives my cat crazy:
I live a mere 250 yards from an Osprey nest but these birds cover large distances so are not always easy to find. This one flew straight over head I was nearing my front door:
They normally perch facing the river or pond so without getting wet they aren't easy to get face-on shots:
Bald Eagles are rarer and tend to only stay in the area for 10-15 minutes every few days, but are truly magnificent
One reason they keep away is the Ospreys and Bald eagles fight a lot, as witnessed below. Another surprise encounter when walking in the nearby park I heard some screeches looked up and managed to grab this
Shallow DoF has killed the photo
. Was filming a Nutria in the shade and had the aperture wide open when these guys flew over head, I had to manually focus the birds at high speed and managed to nail the focus on the osprey but didn't have time to realize the Dof was too shallow.The bald eagles have been known to swoop down and take the baby goslings:
But the NW pond turtles just hide in their shells:
I have some shots of an otter, nutria, kingfisher, vultures, goshawk, but are a little distant. I am told there are beaver usually, I have seen roe deer and bull snakes, and lots of birds I have no idea about. I plan to spend some summer evenings at colleagues house who has wild turkeys and barn owls on his property.
