Perfect Perches, Part III

Birds of the Bog           16 January 2010

Pine Grosbeak in the Sax Zim Bog

Living in Northwest Wisconsin has its ecological privileges.  At 45 degrees North Latitude, I live on a famous ecological tension zone.  My own home rests neatly between eastern deciduous forests dominated by sugar maple, black ash, and basswood, the southern reaches of boreal forest characterized by white pine, paper birch, tamarack, and spruce, and the northern extent of prairie bluestem and oak savanna.  Just two hours to my north, influenced by Lake Superior, a truly boreal forest community exists, complete with balsam fir, black spruce, moose, wolves, the occasional Canada lynx, and the birds so characteristic of the taiga.   Every year, I try to make at least one trip into the Sax Zim Bog to enjoy the flavor of the North American Taiga.

Gray Jay, a bird of the boreal forest

The Perfect Perch quest continues as I search through the last decade of my own work for good, sharp, clean birds on perfect perches.  All of these images were made with a Canon Rebel XTi and a Canon EF 300mm f4 L IS lens.  

Perfect Perches, Part II

Nesting Eastern Bluebirds and Verbascum Mullein      16 May 2010

This male Eastern Bluebird has returned to the nest with a June beetle. He is giving a wing waving display to his mate. 

My search through a decade of my favorite nature photographs continues as I seek those perfect perches, those unusually clean and sharp bird photographs.  One thing all "perfect perch" bird images have in common is that they all required much more planning than conventional bird photographs and consequently led to more time afield, a deeper understanding of the birds' behaviors, and a wonderful, memorable experience of immersion in a natural setting.

Female Eastern Bluebird arriving at the nest with caterpillars

When photographing birds at a nest site, ethics in wildlife photography merge with diligent study of animal behavior and careful observations of the breeding pair.  I began by setting up my camera blind about thirty yards from the nest box after the eggs had hatched and the adults showed an intensified investment in the nest.  I observed the birds from a distance to be sure they grew used to the blind and did not hesitate to feed their young.  Once the parents proved their unfailing dedication to their young and I had determined that the blind posed no threat, I slowly moved it closer and closer to perches used by the adults.  Within two days, I had the blind placed within about ten feet of two primary perches used by the birds to survey the nest before feeding their young.  I only used the blind for a couple of hours before retreating it and eventually removing it completely from the area.

All images were made with a Canon Rebel XTi and a Canon EF 300mm f4 L IS lens mounted to a Bogen tripod.  I used an Ameristep Doghouse blind to conceal myself at the nest.

Perfect Perches, Part I

Northern Hawk Owl and Short-tailed Shrew         27 February 2010

Northern Hawk Owl and Short-tailed Shrew. The Northern Hawk Owl is a true species of owl, but its bodily adaptations and behaviors are more similar to a hawk, with swift flight, diurnal (daylight) hunting habits, and the habit of hunting from a high, conspicuous perch. 

When I was just 15 years old, I was given the Audubon Encyclopedia of North American Birds for my birthday.  The bird photographs were some of the best ever published at the time, and I remember the strong sensation of imprinting that overcame me as I stared at the vivid hummingbird photographs.  There were a couple of images that combined sharp feather detail, rich color, and perfect perches, all in front of an even, clean, saturated background.  To look at these pictures was to hold a bird closely.  

My passion for bird photography grew quickly, and later that winter,  I bought my first SLR camera with my savings account.  It was a 1970 Minolta SRT 101 with a Vivitar 70-210 Macrozoom.  I shot print film, advanced each frame with the crank of a lever, and within a year, I had made my first "perfect perch" photograph. I had enticed a Purple Finch to perch upon a stick taped to a bird feeder.   In the last decade, I have vigorously rediscovered my desire to make sharp, clean images of birds, well saturated in color, exciting in detail, without distracting elements, clean in background and perfect in perch.   To get such images in a truly natural and wild setting is very challenging.

In February of 2010, a Northern Hawk Owl spent the winter surviving within Fish Lake State Wildlife Area and Fish Lake Meadows State Natural Area in Burnett County, Wisconsin.  It hunted actively and very successfully, and it showed almost no fear of people.  To this bird, I was merely a moose or woodland caribou. This hawk owl was truly a product of  boreal Canadian experiences.

On many separate occasions, I observed the bird as it successfully caught and ate red-backed voles, meadow voles, and short-tailed shrews.  Some of the voles were pounced by the owl nearly at my feet as I walked through the sedges, the rodents flushed out of hiding by my approach.  Photographing this bird had become a symbiotic process. Every effort to get closer to the owl seemed to beat some tiny mammal out of its lair.  Some of the prey was consumed on the spot, but many of the small mammals were cached in the broken tops of oak and aspen.  Earlier in the winter, the Hawk Owl often hovered among big, lazy snowflakes before plunging into the sedges of Fish Lake Meadow.  As the winter season wore on, the hawk owl spent more time hunting from perches, taking shrews from the forest edge and red-backed voles from fallen timber.  Not a visit passed without the bird displaying a story of predatory success, and then, sometime in middle March,the sun high and warm in the sky, the well-nourished bird flew off to the Canadian taiga again.

In all of our encounters, the 27th of February provided my favorite set of images.  On this day, the hawk owl hunted the far northern edge of Fish Lake Meadow, a flooded sedge marsh containing the scattered skeletal remnants of a short-lived forest.  The remaining snags, low to the marsh and encrusted in lichen, provided good hunting for the owl and equally good hunting for the my artist's eye.   It was a day of perfect perches.

Northern Hawk Owl coughing out an owl pellet, the undigested hair and bones of shrews and voles. All images were made handheld with a Canon 30D and Canon EF 300 f4 L IS lens. 

Never Forget

My First Unbanded Wisconsin Swan,  Date Unknown, Early Spring, 2003

Trumpeter Swan, in the wild, Crex Meadows, 2003

This photograph is of my first unbanded Wisconsin Trumpeter Swan, a bird that I photographed in 2003, nearly 14 years after the start of the Wisconsin DNR's efforts to restore the species to our state.

European market hunting was once a dangerous and powerful force on the North American landscape.  By the late 1800's, Trumpeter Swans, exploited for their feathers and for their meat, were nearly extinct.  In 1910, there were only about 70 Trumpeter Swans left in the world.  Sumner Matteson and Randy Jurewicz, heading a team of DNR wildlife biologists, collected 40 eggs from the remote wilds in the state of Alaska in 1989. Those eggs served as the renewal of Wisconsin's Trumpeter Swan population.  The thriving Wisconsin population is in its infancy, just 27 years old in a natural system measured by ice ages.

I saw my first Trumpeter Swan in the wild in 1989, at the age of 19, near Jackson Hole, Wyoming. My first wild Midwestern Trumpeter Swans came by sudden surprise in 1992 while surveying night migrant birds through a Noctron night vision scope. In the first years of the restoration efforts, swans were banded and given neck collars with clear identification numbers.  One of those original birds still resides in Burnett County. A bird with a green collar (82K), it is often seen near the Wood River.

We must never forget the mistakes of the past, and we must strive to maintain the hard-fought laws and efforts that have begun to restore our wildlife heritage.  In recent years, the level of respect held for our natural resources and the laws that protect them have declined precipitously.  While the swan's success is celebrated here, I also fear that the youngest generation will never know that this bird is a small miracle.  What seems common in my own neck of the woods is a rare treat for almost everyone elsewhere.  Will our youth strive to protect the habitats that support this bird?

This image was made with a Canon A2, Canon EF300mm L IS lens, and Fujichrome Provia 100 film. For those who do not remember the times when we had no Trumpeter Swans here, photographic images were once captured on the emulsion of a physical substance simply referred to as film. We spent about $7 for 36 exposures, sent it off to a chemical lab for processing for about $4 more, and waited more than ten days to see what successes we had made.  May the treasures of the world find us to be enduring in our patience and long in our vision.  As times change, may we preserve the deepest beauty of a natural Earth. Walk in beauty. 

When the Barometer Falls....

Coyote Morning                    24 January 2016

Coyotes on the Saint Croix River's ice flows

Nature has no set rules, but there are certainly patterns.  Hunters mind those patterns well.  Nature's best hunters follow patterns instinctively, responding to deep genetic memory, need, and the learned and earned opportunities of a life in wild. As a nature photographer, hunting with a camera, I often learn to match my favorite subjects stride for stride, growing restless when animals grow restless.  I have become a hunter with a diverse palette, learning the biology of many species, feeling the opportunities change with seasons, weather, and subtle shifts in the way light plays on the landscape.  I go by feel, go with my gut, just as my wild photo subjects do.  In my pursuit, I am like the animals.

Unfortunately, there is a certain problem in being a human tuned in to natural patterns.  A single human artifact keeps getting in the way.  It is the calendar.  When the air is just right, when the wind has shifted and a weather system is perched just twenty hours away, the whole of nature cries out to me that I should cut loose and run.  All too often, the calendar has played its cruel joke. I am usually blocked in and must place my focus on duty, responsibility, and the commitment to the human endeavors to which I am promised.  Just every once and a great while, those urgencies of migration or mass movements in the wild suddenly correlate with my freedom.   In those moments, I find myself completely immersed in the natural environment, both witness to and fully part of the natural moments as they unfold.  I find myself to be very much alive.

The 24th of January came together beautifully.  More than a week before, my good friend Bruce had discussed an artistic vision with me.   He painted a vivid picture in my mind of a fox or perhaps even a coyote immersed in a rich aesthetic of wintry ecology.  While the image Bruce painted in my mind seemed like a beautiful dream, I also had a strange and confident feeling that we would somehow make it a reality. In my spare time, I focused my scouting efforts along some of my favorite haunts until I found an area with a lot of carnivore track sign and a lot of promise. Two weeks earlier, I had seen bobcat tracks, and now the consistently strong presence of fisher tracks, fox tracks, and coyote tracks boosted my adrenaline. The lay of the land promised more.  Not only did the landscape present me with a stealthy approach, but the pure beauty of the area promised unique and interesting art forms.  Even without a coyote, we could make some unique images.

Mammalian predators are challenging subjects for nature photographers. I have seldom done well in my attempts to make artistic images with them.  But I have discovered a few consistent truths.  Of them, one truth seems to stand out.  When the barometer begins falling, many predators get up on their feet.   As a coyote lives by its feet, so too will I.   While the forecast called for freezing fog and snow with a sky of pea-soup gray, I kept my focus on the falling barometer.  Any challenges with light would be offset by the promise of opportunity.  Bruce and I followed that falling barometer like hungry coyotes.

We slipped through the forest as the first morning light gathered in muted tones of snow-white gray. We crossed fisher tracks and coyote tracks, coming upon fragments of deer rib matted into snow at the edge of a frozen sedge marsh.  Pressing on through oak, black ash, and maple, we soon reached the place of our focus.  While I felt optimism, I stopped to show Bruce a consolation prize.  If we struck out today, we could return to photograph the snowflakes delicately perched upon mosses.  We cautiously moved the last fifty yards toward a frozen bay.

The pictures tell the rest.  Those specific events that followed our arrival to the bay may not be the most eloquent or interesting story, but there are a few things that stand out strongly in my memory.  What follows is the story of what was learned and what may become part of a nature photographer's toolbox.

As we sat in the snow, we focused our lenses on a family group of Trumpeter Swans.  Five swans occupied an open stretch of water, and their bathing and flapping behaviors were plenty interesting.  Of course, we also anticipated otters.  The otter slides were everywhere.  But here, at this favorite spot, I make a habit of looking far, far, far off into the distance.   This is a wide open sort of place, and animal behaviors, even observed without hope of photography, are great teachers.   We had only been on the bay for a couple of minutes when I spotted a coyote.

The coyote was alone and more than a half mile away, but it kept coming in.  We sat still and watched its approach.  Soon it was within range for photography, but as we readied ourselves, we saw five, perhaps six more out on the river ice.  We kept an eye on the five but focused on the single coyote, now trotting between lanes of open ice and open water.

 When the first set of photographs had been made and that first coyote was gone, we slinked along the shoreline until we reached a narrow point of land jutting out into the river.  To our delight, the local otters had used the point for many days as a place for rolling and drying.  They had stripped much of the snow from the grasses, and, much to our benefit, they had rolled their strong musk scent onto every blade of brown grass.  We had the best scent cover on the river, and five coyotes remained in plain view.  We still had not been detected.  For long stretches of time, the coyotes bounded and played on the open river ice, but every now and then, they trotted in very close to shore.

Maybe it was dumb luck.  Maybe we had tuned our skill sets just that well. For certain, the otters had helped us. We had bested the best set of senses on the river.  For the next two hours, we watched and photographed coyotes at play, coyotes at work, coyotes in love, and coyotes both near and far.  Mother Nature put on a spectacular show with atmospherics, ice flows, and long stretches of contiguous foggy forest. When the last coyote had trotted off into the forest, Bruce and I fell to our backs in the pungent otter stench. Legs and feet numb from our enduring crouch, we lay on our backs, faces to the snow flakes. We laughed and celebrated, feeling thankful and full of life.  It was a great day, mostly because the barometer was falling--mostly because the coyotes knew it and we knew it too.

All images were made with a Canon 7D and a Canon EF 400mm f5.6 lens mounted to a Gitzo tripod and an Induro ball head while sharing the day with Bruce Leventhal.  Bruce and Tamy Leventhal are phenomenal photographers. Check out their work at www.Btleventhal.com   

May there be more days with no calendar and a falling barometer!

Boom Town in Brule

An Economy of Birds                       29 June 2015

Black-and-white Warbler, female, gathering food to feed her fledglings

Every once in a while, optimism triumphs over the ever-present specters of global climate change. A perfect summer, a perfect breeding season for insect-eating, forest-nesting birds, has come and gone. Last summer, for an entire month, I conducted breeding bird surveys in the Brule River State Forest.  In the "kick off" year of the Wisconsin Breeding Bird Atlas II, I lingered well into July, finishing around the 12th.  Birds were abundant, and one beautiful fact continued to rise to the top--the conditions in the Brule had been perfect.  Every species of Neotropical migrant bird seemed to have fledglings to feed.  It seemed that none of them were parasitic cowbirds. Warblers used their energies in raising their own young. Small flocks of bombarding fledglings told of success well beyond the grasp of the predators.  Wood warblers were vigorous and in great numbers.  A particular tent site along the waters of the Brule had, in a single moment, wood warblers of five different species, all of them feeding three or four fledglings of their own.  Wonderful birding mayhem!  A float down the river revealed the same--fledgies everywhere!  Life in abundance!

The thrashing of the caterpillar...

Pine Warbler

Black-and-white Warbler

Nashville Warbler

Those birds hatched and raised have already flown south, setting up winter territories from the Gulf Coast to South America.   This Holiday Season, I have a hope for the birds, a greeting or wish for our neighbors closer to the Equator.   My wish is for the bounty of our perfect summer to be with you now, nurtured and nurturing, thriving and growing in strength, readying for their return in the Spring time.  Hopefully, come Spring and Summer, our climate up here will care well for them again! May the abundance continue to grow and the strands of the ecosystem hold strongly!  Let's hope for another boom town of birds in the Brule!

Red-breasted Nuthatch, recently fledged and very close to the 300mm lens!

All images were made with a Canon 7D and a Canon EF 300mm L IS lens, a camera and lens that found their way to the bottom of the Brule. ...But that is another story...

American Woodcock at the end of a busy day...

Clean, Sharp Birds

Composition and Focus in a Moving World               27 December 201

White-breasted Nuthatch and a community of lichens

Let's run a quick thought experiment in life using a photographic platform.  First, we begin with a goal.  I have decided that I want a very sharp, clean bird photograph.  On the 26th of December, I am nestled in a wintry paradise, family together, visiting with my Mom and with Tim. We are enjoying peaceful time in their remote woodland home at the end of a one-mile driveway. We have slipped quietly into a property nestled within thousands of acres of public forest land, but it isn't just the location that brings the calm and comfort.  It is also the beauty of what has been created here. Tim is a potter, and both my Mom and Tim are artists.  They see beauty on so many levels, and they have created a gallery space that connects the outside wild spaces to the mind's artistic places.  There is something magic here that invites creativity.  With feeders well stocked and birds abundant and conditioned behaviorally to the food source, this place has a lot of potential.   My creative energies are drifting toward those feeders, and Tim has supplied me with a few zip ties, perfect for affixing natural perches to the peaks of the various props and supports holding bird feeders aloft.  The running joke with my wife and kids is that "I went to the woods to find a stick."  Within a few minutes, I have returned with something that works.

Purple Finch, male

Soon the old feeder perch is remembered only as practice.  By the end of my December 26th photo session, I am pleased with my results and have figured out some things with exposure theory. In this "pea soup" overcast light, I am overexposing a full 2 stops above the meter's suggestion. Yes, the unpublished pictures from the 26th are very nice, but they are not here.  I have worked in comfort, but I have fallen into that comfort. All of my images look pretty much the same, boring and "same."  The living has been good, and it has been easy.  Birds have landed on my fabricated perch for a few seconds each and every minute. But I have simply taken pictures of birds on a stick.  When you have a good thing going, stay at it, keep working it, and repeat it. This is how we arrive successfully at a second effort on December 27th.

Purple Finch, female 

As I gave it a second run on the 27th, I was wary that the repetition of "same perch, new bird" would give my images less flexibility,  I was also painfully aware that my original perch lacked character. I went on a new woods-walking quest for a better perch.  I found a softer stem with good color,complete with a little snow and ice, and I constructed a new studio with little effort at all. Within a few minutes, the living was good, and, as before, the photography was easy.

Learn, fabricate, and repeat. Learn, fabricate, and repeat.  As students of patterns, we humans can plot our lives with a little ingenuity.  We can build a degree of predictability between ourselves and nature, and we can learn how to create some prosperity and safety in our lives.  Maybe this is the "Part I" of this lesson, this thought experiment.  But there is a "Part II".

American Goldfinch, winter plumage male

With only about twenty minutes left in our visit, the need to travel back home calling us, I had a strange impulse to drop everything, hit the woods, and find one more perch.  My mind must have been working on problems in the subconscious, and I put in another burst of woods-walking energy. While in great spirits, I was frantic in lack of time, frantic to find the best stick ever! I needed more than a bird on a stick.  I needed an ecosystem, an image that would be clean, but an image that would be complex, speaking to the intricacies of a biological community.  I happened to look into a brush pile in time to find a perfect branch, already decomposing, completely covered in lichens.  With only a few minutes to spare, I erected the perch and made just a handful of images with a cooperative White-breasted Nuthatch. A sudden and final bonus, an American Goldfinch landed for a moment just as the nuthatch left. I made short work of the improvements and stayed true to the hoped-for schedule maintained by my family.  So there is the "Part II."  Work at something for a while, and then give it a rest.  You will be amazed at what comes to the front. Be prepared for a sudden and impulsive bout of energy.  Your experiences in the main body of work, given some time to ferment, will result in new creativity and critical thinking, often arriving at unexpected times.   But then, all said and done, there is a Part "Part III."   It has a lot to do with the unexpected times.

White-breasted Nuthatch and the "Lichen Branch"

"Part III" is serendipity.  While I have labored on to talk about good planning, all of my business in setting up the perfect perch to get the perfect "clean" shot of a bird, there is an unseen beauty in such preparation.  Maybe the lesson here is to remain prepared when the work is done.   Unexpected things often follow in the wake turbulence of good energy.   Following the Upper Mississippi River on our journey home, we found ourselves suddenly surrounded by soaring eagles.  A kettle of nearly two dozen adult and immature Bald Eagles soared overhead, and others flew at eye level and even below us over Lake Pepin.  The brisk and cold winds carried them north, and to me, this looked like a sudden and rare event inspired by weather.  My creativity grew as I began to sleuth out meaning, and I began hunting in the realm of opportunity.  Remarkably fast, many of the eagles seemed to be nearly keeping pace with us, but we were traveling fast enough to put a mile or two of separation between us by the time I was able to stop at the historic pullout at Maiden Rock.  I pulled the camera out of the bag, switched out the memory card, and, within seconds, welcomed the soaring eagles as they continued north.  When the eagles had all left, I began scanning low around the lake, hopeful that birds might be flying lower, closer, offering better photographs.  To my surprise, a young Red-tailed Hawk drifted through, flying very low but also away and into a wooded valley. No photograph...  The eagles had been thermaling there, so I kept my eyes on the hawk.  Soon, the bird caught a quick thermal, found a different groove, and started sailing quickly north again, back toward my lens.  I began practicing the focus and checking exposure in preparation for the bird's arrival.  A few seconds later, and for only a few seconds, I made a rapid burst of images.  Crisp, clean birds.

Red-tailed Hawk, first year bird (immature)

Bald Eagle, immature 

Bald Eagle, immature, flying over Maiden Rock, Stockholm, Wisconsin

All images were made with a Canon 7D Mark 1 and Canon EF 400mm 5.6L lens.  For the perched passerine birds, I used a Gitzo Carbon tripod and an Induro ball head.  

Part I: A goal, an idea, and preparation; Bend the odds 

Part II: Let it ferment and prepare for inspired thought

Part III: Carry the energy of success and seek opportunity

Here is a quick gallery of "second looks"!