Carolina Wild Photo (the blog)

This was my second trip to Conowingo Dam on the Susquehanna River in Maryland, near the Pennsylvania border. It is a hot spot for photographers and birdwatchers in the late Fall and early Winter. They come to view the Bald Eagles that tend to gather there to fish and fatten up just prior to mating season. Though I’ve been told the Eagles come by the hundreds, I’ve never seen more than a couple dozen of them there at any one time. In fact, you can rest assured there are more photographers there than Eagles most of the time. The thing that draws me is the opportunity to photograph the Eagles as they dive for fish just below the dam. Eagles sitting in a tree just aren’t as interesting to watch as they are when performing their fish-snatching aerial acrobatics.
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It’s been awhile since I posted, but I have a good excuse…. I’ve been working my hiney off on construction projects around the house, and dealing with contractors hoping to get some remodeling done. All the while I was also looking for a used kayak trailer to haul my Native Ultimate 12 Tegris (from my previous post) on a planned trip to Beaufort in May. Finding and getting the trailer is a story in itself, but I’ll just shorten it to say I did find a trailer, did finally get a title for it, and barely managed to get it ready for my trip at the very last minute. There was something of a deadline involved.
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It looks like Spring has finally slipped past Old Man Winter. I’m glad to see it… well, as soon as the worst of the pollen season gets gone anyway. I’ve been anxious to get out and do some kayaking, especially since back in February I bought myself a new kayak (well, new to me anyway). It’s a Native Watercraft Ultimate 12 Tegris. Yeah, that’s a mouthful, I know. I’ve been quietly wishing I could afford one of them for over two years, but could not justify the expense. They’re expensive because they’re made of Tegris, a competitor to Kevlar…. and you have all heard of Kevlar. Not only are they tough, but extremely light. So far as I know it’s the lightest 12-foot kayak ever made. Without the removable “class one” seat they come with, they weight only 29 pounds. Add the seat, and they’re 35 pounds… still extremely light.

Part of what makes them so light is they’re a hybrid kayak with no deck, much like a canoe, but far more stable. When I found a used one for sale at a good price, I began comparing used prices just to be sure it was as good as I thought. That’s when I happened to learn they had just been discontinued by the manufacturer, supposedly because the cost of the Tegris material had gone way up, making the manufacturing costs skyrocket. The result was that they would end up costing more than the manufacturer thought most people would pay. So, knowing that, I decided I’d best get one before the demand for used ones drove up the price on used ones too.
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As promised, this part three post is about some birds I’d never seen or photographed before. The beginning of my marathon weekend was a 9 hour drive to New Jersey, north of Atlantic City, to the Barnegat Lighthouse. Next to the lighthouse is a long jetty of huge boulders which attracts birds of the open sea not commonly seen along the shore. Because of this, Barnegat Light is popular among birders and wildlife photographers for viewing Harlequin Ducks, Black Scoters, Surf Scoters, Long-tailed Ducks, Red-breasted Mergansers, Scaup and others, including the Common Loon. Lucky for me, I also found another species I had not expected…. Brant geese.
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One of the photographic techniques I’ve been wanting to improve upon is photographing birds in flight, or “BIF” as they’re called by wildlife photographers. This past weekend I made another trip to Cambridge, Maryland, where I planned to concentrate on my technique with ducks (just about my favorite photo subject). I hoped to catch them one last time before they made their usual mid-March exodus to parts far north for the Spring nesting season. Once again I was blessed with sunny warmish weather, a rare freak occurrence it seems this winter, between all the frigid ice, sleet, snow and rain that has characterized the beginning of 2014.
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As a continuation of my recent marathon weekend post, I’d like to focus individually on the two locations from the trip that produced some great photos. In this “part two” installment, I will highlight Cambridge, Massachusetts. The location is along the Choptank River in a quiet old neighborhood near the downtown. The locals began feeding ducks that stopped over on their migration, and ever since ducks have taken advantage of the free corn they have come to expect at this one magic spot. In fact, photographing ducks here is akin to “shooting ducks in a barrel”, to quote a recognizable phrase.
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My absolute favorite birds to photograph have to be ducks. They tend to be the most skittish subjects in the bird world, generally making the task of getting good photos of them fairly difficult. Thankfully there are a few places one can go to get reasonably close to a few species, where they will tolerate the presence of humans in their proximity, within limits of their choosing of course. And with the right equipment and quiet patience, it’s possible to get some excellent photos of these fascinating birds with relative ease, compared to hours or days in the “wilderness” trying to find them, and attempting to get close enough for photography.
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A week and a half after the big coastal snow the NC coast got hit again, this time with more ice and sleet than snow. Power outages and driving on more ice than snow would have made a trip to the coast a very bad idea for this round of weather. Instead I hung around home for the 5 inches we received, with some sleet on top of that, and more snow still on top of that. Though it’s been overcast and snowing, the sky has been a brighter overcast than on my coastal snow trip. That made it feasible to get some photos at home around the bird feeder.

Though there were Juncos, Goldfinch, Red-bellied Woodpeckers, Downies, White-throated Sparrows, Robins, Tufted Titmouses, Nuthatch and a spattering of other birds hanging around, my camera was drawn to the Cardinals. The brilliant red of the males is so photogenic with the snow. As a bird photographer acquaintance of mine put it – “Cardinals and snow go together like strawberries and creme.” Besides, with the not-so-bright light available, the photos needed all the color they could get, and the male Cardinals provided that.
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Well finally, a month into my retirement, I got my break… sorta. Actually I simply took a big chance and drove to the Outer Banks a few hours before the big snow of Jan.28-29, 2014. Snow on the Outer Banks (any snow, much less several inches) was a rarity indeed, and I didn’t want to miss this opportunity. The plan was to arrive just before the snow hit so I’d be positioned to get some photos. I knew if I didn’t get there before the snow, I wouldn’t be able to get there at all before it started melting. I reached Nags Head and got a room just as the first of the sleet and snow began to fall on the 28th. Based on the forecast that the 29th afternoon and the 30th would be sunny, it was a good plan. Problem was…. no sunshine. Dull overcast skies prevailed the entire time, so any chance for “good” shots was all but dead. I found enough subjects to shoot, but with such poor light there was no good color or vibrancy in the images.

As soon as the snow quit on the 29th and I could get out on the roads, I headed straight to Bodie Island Lighthouse. I discovered, much to my surprise, that all the pine trees in the loop drive in front of the lighthouse had been cut down. There was no sign they had ever been there. This opened up the view for wide angle shots that were not possible in the past. The dark overcast made for dull images, so I had to make do as best I could.
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Well, I’m almost a week into my retirement and I can’t get a break. With all the rain and overcast there’s been no opportunity to get out and get started photographing the winter migration flocks. It seems more like a month though, and actually it has been, because of all the vacation time I had to burn in December just to reach my official retirement date. Christmas and the holidays took up much of that time, though I have been busy with projects around the house, and working on a couple of photography equipment projects, plus general maintenance of my several photography web sites. Still, that’s not photography per se, and I’m itching to get busy on that. As I write this it’s 8 degrees outside with a stiff wind bringing below-zero wind chill temps. Before that it was rain, drizzle and overcast. Cold weather in and of itself is not a deterrent to my photography, although anything below about 25 degrees, particularly with a wind, takes most of the fun out of it. Rain, overcast and no sunshine makes it a complete waste of time.

I managed to write up an equipment article for CarolinaWildPhoto.com for attaching a Hoodman Loupe (a Christmas present) to my camera. I’m also trying to finish up a Ghillie blanket I started back in the summer. After making two Ghillie suits with hoods, and two Ghillie covers for my 500mm and tripod, I pretty much ran out of desire to finish up that blanket at the time. But now that I have the time to work on it I ran out of Ghillie thread, and I’m having to wait on an order to arrive so I can finish the blanket.

So, here I sit behind a keyboard wishing I was behind my camera instead. Maybe I’ll catch a break soon.