CONSWORLD

I like to capture images of Lions Head when the first rays of morning sunlight are striking its top and clouds in the west are lit with early colorful light.

The challenge with this scene is losing the trees in the foreground to deep shadows. The light reaches Lions Head a long time before it illuminates the trees. The range from highlights to shadows make this image a good choice for multiple exposure composites.

The 9,000+ ft. Lions Head is part of the forbidden park, closed to the public while in the planning stages. I wait impatiently for its opening. When that happens I may have to start a blog just for park photos.

While I wait for a hummingbird’s return to a feeder or wildflowers, I often look around for something else to focus on between the bird captures. I never tire of “shooting the moon” and was happy one day recently when I looked up and saw the moon framed in clouds.

Today, no moon or mountain views, the clouds are very low.

I’m happy I decided to skip this weekend’s festival. It’s no fun setting up a tent full of photography in the rain. The rest of the weekend is forecast to be the same. Rain and more rain, much needed and appreciated.

Here’s how I capture hummingbirds sipping nectar with mountains and sky in the background making bands of blurred color:

Put the pot of flowers on the deck rail where there is a distant view of mountains. (This will work with other distant views or objects as well. Try to find a pleasing background  with nothing between the flowers and the background.)

Use a telephoto and experiment with aperture settings until your flowers are sharp and background blurred.

A tripod helps to support a heavy lens while waiting to photograph.

To capture the hovering wings, use a fast shutter speed.

Optional: Add a little fill flash to lighten shadows or light up the iridescent feathers of the bird. 

I like the forest and sky reflections in this one.

One of the babes swam toward me for a closer look. They are one week old in these photos.

Catching insects above upper lake’s reflective surface, a violet-green swallow was my subject yesterday as I sat on a rock at water’s edge with the morning sun to my left.

Focusing manually as swallows and swifts darted and dipped over the lake, I watched their flight patterns through the lens. Then, every time I nailed the focus on a bird, I’d capture several images while panning with the bird.

Just the day before, I photographed mallard ducklings from the other side of the lake.

A male rufous speeds back and forth from his guard post on an aspen branch to the feeder to defend against all incoming sippers.  

Being the dominate rufous at my house would not be so difficult, but feeders on every side of the house make defending from a single branch impossible. 

Watching all the feeders throughout the day, I see sippers I might think were being denied if I watched only watch one feeder. Broadtails are still about, but rufous attempts to rule.

Capturing perfectly sharp stills of hovering hummingbirds’ wings was a bit of an obsession for me in the 2005 - 2006 hummingbird seasons here in Consworld.  Now, as I continue to experiment with both natural light and flash hummingbird photography, I’m favoring the blurred wing images over the sharper ones.

Even with the bill shadow cast on the bird by the midday sun, I like this photo, but might remove the shadow before printing.

Middle of July brings the rufous hummingbird, already migrating south. Rufous only visits my area on the southbound migration. The northbound route is much farther west.

This yearly visit changes the behavior of the broadtails who have been feeding and nesting here
since late April. As the rufous charge in and seize control of July flowers and feeders,
the broatails must sneak to the feeders and flowers for a quick sip before a guarding rufous
chases them away.

Smaller and faster than the broadtails, rufous are expert flyers and very agressive. It is hard to get  hovering photos of either species at my place right now with all the quick sipping and high speed fleeing and pursuing going on around here.

However, I confess I haven’t put much effort into photographing the hummingbirds and my normal nature subjects for a few weeks.

A wonderful week long visit with family has kept me busy photographing people rather than birds and other nature subjects. I also spent a few hours this month photographing a wedding party as an assistant to a professional portrait and wedding photographer/friend and neighbor.

Dark afternoons have promised and sometimes delivered welcome rains this month. After the rains, I like to photograph summer wildflowers. But, I’ve been digging and pulling alien weeds after the rains (it’s easier then) and doing wildfire mitigation (cleaning up deadfall and dry plant material) around my home this month. 

Now, I’ve made a promise to myself to spend more time in the coming weeks on my nature photography work and less time with people and house chores. A moose was sighted in an area close to my home recently. I’d love to photograph her if she’s still around. 

Happy July!

Con

P.S. Another project on the table now is an Artist Co-op in a nearby town. This is something I’ve
wanted to do with area artists about for about three years. An opportunity is on the horizon, so we are meeting and researching. I’ll write more about this when (and if)  we get to the planning stage.
 

I’m still sorting through all the photos I captured in June and now it’s July already. Here are some June captures I found in the files dumped hurriedly onto the computer during the past few weeks.

another tongue:

sipping current nectar:

baby nuthatch:

sparrow? what kind?    Female redwing! Thanks, Drew!

western tanager:

red fox “tippy” at sunset:

Hummingbird’s tongue.

Two festivals a week apart have kept me busy. Thanks to everyone who participated in the Rhubarb Festival and Bailey Days this year.  It was a beautiful two days by the river in Bailey last weekend and one day fest at the firehouse the week before in Pine Grove.

It’s wildfire season. A wildfire is buring in an older burn area near Pine Valley. Lighting strikes start fires. The wind blows. Virga in the sky more than rain drops on the ground.

Pine pollen. It’s a green world with green windows and people driving green cars - even the gas guzzlers are “green” right now.

Too much talking (at the shows), too much pollen (everywhere!), my voice is dry like the weather.

We get a few raindrops splattering in the green dust some afternoons.

The western tanagers are here. We usually have a pair near our house this time of year. The male is so brightly colored it is possible to spot him immediately in the douglass firs. He is cautious and won’t come too close. He is seen most often with his mate somewhere near. She is yellow green and blends with new growth on the trees. I feel sorry for the male, too bright to hide.  

Columbines are blooming, yellow, blue, and purple.  Lots of other wildflowers blooming now, too. Wild geranium, penstemons, cinquefoils, blanket flowers, sedums, wild roses . . . too many to name them all.

Summer is here. I missed posting photographs of its arrival while busy with the shows. Soon, I’ll begin catching up by sorting through this month’s photographs to see if I have enough for a June “review” post. For now, I’m out photographing what’s left of June in consworld.  

June in Consworld means hummingbirds feeding on the wild current bushes near my home.  It also means printing and framing for my display at the annual Rhubarb Festival in mid June at the fire house in Pine Grove. I’ve been working on my display when it is too windy to photograph. The images above were captured a few days ago.

Yesterday I waxed the tent for Saturday’s show and tested the set up in a variable but mostly light wind. I’ll have help setting up on Saturday morning, but ran through the whole set up from canopy with weights attached through display walls and print bins. I always get everything out and test it before the first show of the season.

I didn’t hang anything on the display yesterday during my tent and display wall test. The plan for hanging is still evolving in my head as I frame and count and group images with options I’ve scribbled on scrap paper. More frames should arrive today and when I’ve finished the framing I’ll print all the new labels and information cards.

As I print, frame, sort, and pack, I long to be outside photographing. When I’m outside photographing I forget about all the things I have to do to be prepared for Saturday’s festival for a few minutes and enjoy the light and colors of June.

Last spring I photographed a baby fox with a crooked face nicknamed Tippy by my neighbors.  I saw Tippy several times throughout the summer and fall and then no more.  Early yesterday morning the fox with the face you can’t mistake was running by my house. It paused for a moment while I photographed and then continued on its way.

 
This male broadtail hummingbird spread his wings several times before flying away. He was probably showing another hummingbird he was prepared to defend his territory.

 The birds often perch on a dead twig where they have an almost 360 degree view to watch over the wildflowers and feeders. The males seem to spend more time chasing rivals away than they do feeding on the flowers they so jealously guard.

Though the images could have been cropped more for this post, I wanted to include a few of the spring-green aspen leaves in the images above.

Below is a both a closer crop of the bird and the full image:

The bird is a very small part of the full image at the distance (perhaps 40 feet) I was working with the 100 to 400 telephoto fully extended to 400mm. Taking a photo of something the size of my thumb from that distance is ok when I’m just cropping for web images, but there just aren’t enough pixels in the bird to make a big print. I usually photograph when the birds are closer.

Windy weather has limited my outdoor flash work recently. (See previous post.) The flash extender acts as a sail in the wind. More to come on lighting up the hummingbirds when I have more to show and write.