Photo Notes

Osprey launching from a tree (click to view larger)

It was quite frustrating trying to take photographs of birds during our kayak trip on the Suwannee river. The forest was quite thick so it was hard to get a good view. And if a bird was in sight, then as soon as I would pull my camera out and go to take a picture, it would fly away. The worst were the Great Blue Herons - instead of just flying away, they would just move ahead a few hundred yards so you could repeat the frustrating process multiple times! (Eventually I did manage to get a few shots of them, like this and this.) There were kingfishers and northern cardinals around that I would have loved to capture but they were too elusive.

On top of that, the kayak is always moving, and if there is a strong current, you can drift past before you have a chance to take a picture.

When I took this I was actually trying to get a picture of the osprey sitting on a branch.  But just as I went to press the shutter it launched into the air.

In this case, by pure luck, it worked out really well - the spread wings reaching for the air make a much better shot than a static bird on a branch.

It was also fairly early in the morning so the light was quite nice and warm, and the sky wasn't overpoweringly bright, but there was still enough light for a reasonably fast shutter speed.

You can tell in this shot from a few seconds later that it was keeping an eye on me.

As usual, it isn't as sharp as I'd like but given the circumstances I was lucky to get the shot at all. Often when I try to catch a bird in motion the camera can't focus fast enough and refuses to fire at all. And it was good enough (for me) to print at a reasonable size.

See also: other print posts