Cooper’s Hawk, Again

Cooper’s Hawk

To fight “cabin fever” here in way too hot Phoenix I’ve been visiting Boyce Thompson Arboretum near Superior, AZ, about 60 miles east of where I live. My two recent trips have been chases (“twitches” as British birders call them)  after reported rarities discovered by others: the first on July 10 for a Thick-billed Kingbird well north of its usual range; and July 20 for Big-horned Sheep (last seen at the arboretum in 2002). For the record I saw neither the kingbird (a one day wonder) nor the sheep (refound by friends as I was about to depart and gone by the time I got back to their location).

My consolation prize on the July 10 visit was more time with the juvenile Cooper’s Hawks that I’d seen a few days earlier. They were in the same location and I was prepared for them.

Cooper’s Hawk

For this pair of images I increased my ISO to 1600 – a value that is less an ideal from an image quality standpoint  but still quite useful and remarkable compared to what we could do in the days of film.

Whenever a subject cooperates I like to get variations on framing and overall composition if at all possible. I love this setting, with the normally fierce accipiter surrounded by soft white flowers. I had some difficulty fining a completely clear view but did my best to keep the greenery from blocking the eye. In the first image (the horizontal composition) I was so concerned by the eye that I inadvertently clipped the tail at the bottom of the frame.

A minute later I was able to get a somewhat clearer view of the eye and face, and I also went to vertical to include the tip of the tail. I like both images but prefer the first one by a slight margin as it shows more of the soft setting. I”d be interested in hearing your preferences between these two images.

Nikon D300, Nikkor 300/2.8 AF-S plus TC20E III (2x), tripod, ISO 1600, 1/125-1/160th second, f/8, spot metered

Desert Spiny Lizard

Desert Spiny Lizard

My two recent visits to Boyce Thompson Arboretum near Superior, AZ, were very productive photographically and I am continuing to work on images from those two trips. Although I almost always give priority to avian subjects like my recently posted Black Phoebe and Cooper’s Hawk, I also like to see and photograph other nature subjects.

One of the few advantages of living in the way too hot desert in central Arizona is the variety of lizards that can be seen – rather different than my years in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The Desert Spiny Lizard is one of my favorites. Adults reach almost six inches in length, but the bulk and attitude makes them seem much larger. Like the other common lizards they come out in the hot weather and find a prominent location to soak up the heat from the sun. These idle periods provide the best opportunity for photos if the lizard doesn’t spook while the photographer approaches. This splendid specimen had found a large rock formation along the trail at Boyce that gave it a high vantage point, and when I set up for shots from various spots along the trail it remained.

Desert Spiny Lizard

The steep angle I had to work with wasn’t ideal as it blocked parts of the lizard and it meant I couldn’t get enough depth of field to keep the foreground sharp along with the lizard, but it did allow me to get some nice views or the throat and belly when the lizard assumed this display position. The males show off their bright colors to attract females and intimidate rival males. They also pump up and down (“push ups”) to very effectively attract attention.

Another challenge in photographing these animals is dealing with the high contrast light that usually prevails when they are active. This definitely isn’t the sweet light of early morning that I seek out for my bird photos.

Black Phoebe Fun

Black Phoebe with Mexican Amberwing Dragonfly

In my previous post I related a productive trip to Boyce Thompson Arboretum, a state park about an hour’s drive east of Phoenix. I enjoyed getting out again is spite of the heat so much that I made another trip to Boyce this week, even though I’ve got a lot of images still to work on from the previous visit.

Another reason for going back so soon was to chase after another reported rarity; unfortunately it was a One Day Wonder and never seen again after the initial discovery. That happens a lot with rarities so I wasn’t surprised. But because the rarity had been seen by the artificial Ayers Lake at Boyce I ended up spending more time there waiting around than I usually do. And I filled my time waiting by watching and photographing the very busy Black Phoebe adults that have noisy chicks in a hidden nest near the lake. The lead image shows an adult with a female Mexican Amberwig dragonfly clasped in the beak and ready for delivery to the waiting young birds.

Black Phoebe

Like the closely related Eastern Phoebe, the Black Phoebe is mostly found in close proximity to water. They are expert flycatchers and make frequent dashes after insects from favorite perches overlooking the water. In this second image we can see this adult has selected a bolt that sticks out from the concrete that forms one side of the lake and gives a good post for flycatching.

Black Phoebe

In the third image we see the mate on a better looking natural perch – vegetation that arches over the water. Of the two adults this bird’s feathers show a lot more wear and tear – raising hungry young birds takes a lot of work and feathers take a beating in the process.

Black Phoebe

This final image shows the same adult as in the first two images, but was taken on the previous visit in different light. It may not be the most photogenic perch, but the phoebe definitely liked it.

All images: Nikon D300, Nikkor AF-S 300/2.8 plus TC20E III (2x), tripod, ISO 400, f/8 at shutter speeds from 1/400th second to 1/1250th second

A Break from the Heat

Cooper’s Hawk adult feeding juvenile

Last week I decided to ignore the continuing heat in central AZ, where it has been well into the triple digits for many weeks, and made the trip to Boyce Thompson Arboretum near Superior, AZ. Although just 60 miles east of Phoenix the slight increase in elevation and the riparian habitat in the Queen Creek canyon make it a few degrees cooler than the desert around Phoenix.

I hiked around the two miles of trail from 6:00 until 8:30 am taking frequent sips of water from the hydra pack I was wearing and taking my time enjoying being out. I didn’t have a long list of Avian species, but I still found enough subjects to take about 300 photos (half of them of a single subject).

The visit was capped off when I located the family of Cooper’s Hawks that have been nesting at Boyce for many years – I could hear one of them calling and saw one large bird pass through the low trees. When I hiked over in the direction the hawk had taken I found one adult ripping apart some prey and feeding it to a recently fledged juvenile while a second young bird watched from nearby.

I was thrilled when none of the birds instantly departed (a usually happens with hawks). I started taking photos as soon as I had a clear view as I figured my window of opportunity was limited. I decided not to fumble around taking off the 2x converter I use for almost all my bird photos to give me wider coverage and just started taking shots. The light was dim in this shaded alcove, and the strong light behind the birds didn’t help with getting a good exposure. I increased the ISO from 400 to 800 to gain an additional stop of shutter speed and kept shooting.

With the narrow angle of view using the 2x on the 300 I couldn’t get both the adult and young bird completely in the frame so I concentrated on the juvenile and cropped out most of the adult.

Note the pale blue iris of the juvenile – it will soon turn pale yellow before finally turning orange-red as an adult. Also note that this bird still shows some downy feathers on the forehead.

When I processed these images there was very little work to do: I use the recovery slider in Adobe Camera Raw to bring down one hotspot in the bright background, moved the temperature slider to counteract the cool blue tint from the deep shade, and brought up the midtones with the middle slider. I then fine tuned the image in Photoshop with a slight increase in saturation and contrast and cropped slightly from top, right, and bottom for better balance in the composition.

This additional image was taken just a fraction of a second in time from the image at the top. I prefer the head position of the adult in the first image but thought I’d share the second as a bonus.

Cooper’s Hawk adult feeding juvenile

I feel very fortunate to have seen these birds so close and to have them stay put while I took photos. But it also helped to have my gear ready, with the camera and lens mounted on my extended tripod and ready to shoot in aperture-preferred mode as it always is.

Both images: Nikon D300, Nikkor 300/2.8 AF-S, TC20E III (2x), Gitzo 1325 carbon fiber tripod, Really Right Stuff BH-55 ball head, Sidekick, ISO 800, 1/200th second at f/8, 795 of frame.

Getting Close to Small Birds

Abert’s Towhee

Nikon D300, AF-S 300/2.8 plus TC20E (2x), ISO 400, 1/500th second at f/8, tripod, Gilbert Water Ranch, 88% of frame

The Problem

A fundamental problem for bird photographer’s is getting close enough to small subjects in the wild for decent size images. Over the years I’ve noticed how many novice photographers assume there must be a quick and painless way to do this, and they are convinced of it from all the excellent tightly framed images they see posted on the web these days.

My personal position on this is that too many beginners want instant success without putting in all the hard work or expense a lot of the accomplished photographers have gone through to get the results that appear so easy. But there are ways to get better images than simply over-cropping.

Massive Cropping

Unfortunately, many novice photographers believe that all they need to do is crop a very small part of their frame and blow it up to get a tight composition. Some of them argue that the ever increasing MP count of camera sensors allows them to get quality results out of these massive crops because even after cropping they are left with a lot of MegaPixels to work with. This just isn’t true in almost all cases. Lenses have a limited ability to resolve detail, and whenever we crop we are not only reducing the amount of information we have to work with (fewer pixels); we are also reducing the resolution of our optics by effectively enlarging the images with the crop. Just look at the lens tests in any magazine and note that the more an image is blown up the lower the rating of the lens becomes. This applies to even the best lenses. Cropping has the same effect as over enlarging, and if you start out with a marginal lens (as many of the consumer grade lenses are) you quickly run out of resolution.

I believe that most bird photographers crop their images to some degree – if you shoot wild subjects in natural settings then it is almost always necessary to fine tune composition in post processing with some amount of cropping. Experienced photographers who care about the quality of their images, though, limit the amount of cropping that they will do.

The Abert’s Towhee at the top of this post is 88% of the full frame. The crop was made to improve composition by taking a bit off the left edge and thereby moving the subject out of dead center. That’s a rather small crop that doesn’t have much impact on overall image quality. The Abert’s Towhee below, however, is a larger crop – only 40% of the full frame. That crop, coupled with the lower resolution of the zoom lens used, takes a toll on detail in the final image even at this web size.

Abert’s Towhee at water feature

Nikon D70, 70-300 VR Nikkor, ISO 400, 1/125th second at f/8, tripod, backyard, 40% of frame

I strongly advise novice bird photographers to forget about trying to make do with massive crops as it will set a low quality standard that you will regret in the future when you master other techniques.

Bird in Habitat Composition

Instead of trying to fake a tight composition by massive cropping I suggest learning to compose images with a smaller subject and use the setting to “fill out” the composition. For a lot of photographers this can be difficult as it requires dealing with more compositional elements than just the bird, and finding a setting that suggests the habitat preferences of the subject without becoming distracting or cluttered is harder than a lot of people think. This Orange-crowned Warbler is a good example of keeping te subject small in the frame and using the habitat to complete the composition:

Orange-crowned Warbler

Nikon D200, AF-S 300/2.8 plus TC2E (2x), iso 400, 1/160th second at f/5.6, tripod, Gilbert Water Ranch

I find this to be a strong image with an effective composition, even though the warbler is rather small in the frame. Learning to compose in thi manner is a good skill to develop as it will always serve you no matter what focal length lens you have.

Backyard Birds and Blinds

One of the easiest ways to get close to birds is to make them come to you. Many photographers do this by using feeders or water in their yards to attract birds, arranging the feeders and water features for best light. Although we have fed birds in our yard for 30+ years now I rarely try to take photos of the birds that come in for the handouts. One reason for this is my wife thinks that birds need as much food as possible from as many feeders as possible, and that leads to chaos as far as photography is concerned. To make a feeding station work for bird photography one needs to limit the feeders (one is best) and make sure that there is only one good perch for the birds to use on approach. That way the camera can be positioned to frame a bird on that carefully selected perch when the light is best. Many people can do this with modest telephoto lenses (like 200mm). Some photographers perfect their setups and technique and produce technically perfect images; a few even make a career out of this approach.

This cowbird (probably Brown-headed but maybe Bronzed) has been coming to the patio along with the Abert’s Towhee surrogate parent that my wife insists on feeding meal worms.

Cowbird on the patio

Nikon D300, 70-300 VR Nikkor, ISO 800, 1/400th second at f/5.6, hand held, back yard, 89% of frame

Water can also be a strong attractant for birds, especially where it is a scarce commodity. A birdbath works but makes for sub optimal images with limited potential for use. A small water feature (like in the second towhee photo above) also works but isn’t that much more attractive than a regular birdbath. But it isn’t that difficult to make an artificial small pond or stream with recirculated water and carefully placed stones that can be effective settings for bird photos.

These same techniques can be taken into the field. Many birders who take their motor homes to the parks in south Texas set up feeders to bring in the birds. And some photographers will set up water drips outside a blind in places where there is a lot of bird activity to lure in subjects.

Playback of Recorded Calls

Ten years ago photographers went to a lot of effort to make up bird call tapes to play back through a portable speaker from a small cassette player in the field.  Today iPods and other MP3 players along with bird ID applications for them have made the use of bird calls simple in the field. I’ve even seen this done with a small wireless speaker from an iPhone. It is very effective and seductive for photographers, but I find it very troubling and ask that photographers not use recordings – especially with rare species or while any species is involved in nesting activity. Since I don’t use the technique I have no images to illustrate this point.

At or Near a Nest

Another “trick” used by some photographers is to shoot at or near an active nest. Adult birds are programmed to feed their offspring and will often continue to do so even with a photographer much closer than they would tolerate while engaged in any other activity. This can be very risky for the birds – close attention can cause the adults to abandon a nest before the eggs have hatched; parents might leave recently hatched birds exposed to the sun longer than they should when a photographer is too close; human presence can bring predators to nest sites to investigate. Please exercise common sense if you decide to try this and always put the welfare of the subjects above your desire to get a good photo. n no case should you trim away any vegetation to get a better view of the nest.

I’ve written about this before and used these images:

Bell’s Vireo exposed nest

Nikon D200, 300/2.8 plus TC20E (2x), ISO 200, 1/60th second at f/10, tripod, fill flash, Boyce Thompson Arboretum

Note the clipped twigs above the nest that should be protecting these chicks from the got sun – probably trimmed away by a selfish photographer wanting a “better” view of the nest.

Anna’s Hummingbird nest

Nikon D200, 300/2.8 plus TC20E (2x), ISO 200, 1/60th second at f/11, tripod, fill flash, Boyce Thompson Arboretum

This is another nest that’s been exposed by a selfish photographer who trimmed away protective vegetation to allow a cleaner “better” view.

Zoos

Another place to get close to birds is where they can’t fly away – zoos. I now many people do this but it has zero appeal for me so there are no images to illustrate this option.

Rehabilitation Centers

I’ve known bird rehab centers in NJ and here in AZ, and such places offer another chance to get close shots of birds with shorter lenses. The problem with these birds is that they are often not in good physical shape – perhaps missing an eye or with a wing that droops from a brain injury with a car. The photographer needs to compose carefully to hide such defects if attempting to make a pretty image. And like zoo shots it is difficult to make any of these images look like a wild bird in a natural setting.

A Couple References

There are often articles in photo magazines telling How To Do It, so look for them every few years. But for better coverage try some books you might find at the public library or the shelves of a Goodwill store.

Bird Photography Guide

I picked this up for $1.00 at a thrift store. It dates from the days of film with only a passing mention of digital photography, but it has material on feeders and water and calling birds, even including a couple lists in the back for which technique works with which species and what tpe of food to use.

Larry West Book

This is a decent guide to bird photography, also dating from the days of film. It doesn’t reley entirely on big telephotos and I like many of the “smaller in frame” compositions West uses to illustrate the book.