Wordless Wednesday
Tag Archives: Kensington
Last but not least
We were cold and tired. Our feet hurt, my back ached, but we were happy, knowing that we had each gotten several really good images of our favorite birds. It was time to drive home.
We each climbed into our respective cars for the trip out of the park. But there was one more place we needed to check out before we left. Because, on our drive into the park we’d both, separately, noticed a single swan sitting in a blue pool of open water in the frozen river. It was a stunning scene, but neither of us had pulled over.
When we climbed out of our cars at the Nature Center the first thing we said to each other was “Did you see that swan?” I offered to drive back there right then but she said, “No, we’ll stop on our way out.”
Neither of us really thought that swan would still be there on our way out. If we’ve learned anything doing outdoor photography it’s that if you see it shoot it. Nothing ever looks exactly the same again.
But we let the swan idea go and headed back into the woods in search of the birds you’ve seen in my previous two posts. In fact I sort of forgot all about that swan, I was having such a good time with the little birds.
But when we packed up the car for the return trip we decided if the swan was still there we’d stop. And wonder of wonder, when we drove across the bridge above the river there were dozens of swans!
Obviously we pulled over and climbed out of the car, forgetting our cold toes and fingers.
Standing out in the open, up on a bridge, as the wind blew and our fingers turned to ice we kept shooting until we had half again as many photos as we had already taken!
There were lots of swans, but I was most interested in the three that were near me, just below the bridge I was standing on.
There was the single, beautiful swan directly below us as well as the couple off to the side. It was like a photo shoot with beautiful models. As they moved, turning their heads and posing, we kept shooting.
Neither of us wanted to leave, it was so beautiful. In fact at one point I got back in the car. After all, how many pictures of a swan does any one photographer need? And then the wind picked up and the feathers on our swan blew in the wind.
And I had to get back out and keep shooting. Of course, wouldn’t you?
I swear, if you live close to this park in Southeast Michigan I’m surprised you’re not already in your car heading over there.
In fact, just say the word, I’ll meet you.
And finally –the little birds
It’s been three weeks since I last visited Kensington, my favorite park, feeding and taking pictures of the birds.
Those of you new here probably don’t know about Kensington, where the wild birds freely come down to outstretched hands for treats.
Most people seeing this for the first time think it’s odd and wonderful, all at the same time. Which of course it is.
Feeding the birds is one of my favorite things to do in the whole world and if I lived closer I’m sure I’d be there every day. There are some lucky people who are able to do that. I think some of the birds probably recognize them as regulars.
I see some people walking the trails for exercise, but the majority of people are there to experience a bird landing on their hand, or to photograph birds. Or both.
It’s been so long now since I took these pictures that I can’t remember the stories that go with them. So mostly I won’t narrate the birds’ thoughts. Suffice it to say that they’re mostly all about the food.
Mostly I was trying to get images of birds moving, they’re so beautiful in flight. But often I had the camera focused on my hand, waiting for the birds to land, and their wingspans turned out to be just outside the focus area. Lesson learned.
Still, you can see how complicated bird wings are, and how beautiful.
As photographers we were so lucky that day — the sun came out, so even though it was very cold and windy we got some beautiful light.
We spent a good two hours standing next to a small tree that seemed to be the launching ground for little (and some not so little) birds to buzz over to our hands.
We didn’t have to go look for the birds, they heard (through the grape vine?) about us and zoomed right over.
But eventually the sun lowered and the chill intensified. The handwarmers I put in my boots were now cold and so were my toes.
It was time to go home, but we didn’t want to leave our little friends. They were still busy coming and going.
They weren’t giving up on us…how could we give up on them?
But they had eaten a lot, their bellies should be full. And in the morning a whole new bunch of people would be on the trails, hands outstretched filled with oilers and peanuts and suet balls.
Breakfast will be served.
Oh…on a previous post I said that we saw something beautiful on the way out of the park…but this post is already way too long. So I guess you’ll have to wait just a little bit longer.
I promise it’s worth the wait.
The smash and dash
Ten days ago I took you with me while I searched for the redheaded woodpecker. And as you saw, we found the noisy little guy almost right away! So did we turn around and go home, having achieved our mission?
Well of course not!
I have sooooo much to show you that it’s hard to choose! But I think you’ll enjoy our effort to get a good shot of the park’s smash and dash thieves, the brilliantly hued, but common, blue jays.
While other birds joyously drop down to hands filled with special treats, select a morsel and flit back up into the trees to enjoy their snacks, the blue jays stalk park guests, skulking up in higher tree branches, then drop lower to scout out the situation, as they wait for an opportunity.
And when they see it, when the timing is just right, they swoop down, slam into the giver’s hand, grab the best treat and spill the rest of the seed on the ground as they dash back up into the trees to enjoy their spoils.
The rest of the birds stay out of the way and watch. It’s a kind of entertainment for them, too.
Plus they get to gather the leftovers from the ground after the blue jay’s dramatic exit.
We spent a lot of time standing in one place trying to get images of the blue jays coming down for their smash and dash.
Mostly we got shots of the empty hand, or a blue jay behind.
I know my photographer friend has at least one excellent image of the blue jay just before it landed on her daughter’s hand, but my best shot was of him racing away.
We had so much fun trying to capture an image of the jays and watching the other birds. It was cold that day and everybody was hungry. I have lots of images of smaller and more polite birds that would like their stories told too.
I told them I wasn’t sure if you all were prepared for more bird blogs. After all, when you’ve seen one bird, you’ve seen them all…..right?
Of course not right!!! Stay tuned. I have lots of beautiful birds, and a special surprise that we found on our way out of the park that afternoon.
Coming to a blog near you soon.
Searching for a redhead
It’s been awhile, a really long while, since I’ve been out to Kensington to feed the birds. A photographer friend and I have been talking about it for what feels forever – – stuff just got in the way. But this week we decided we needed to make it a priority, because the weather around here isn’t going to get any better.
With negative wind-chill predicted for next week we decided to get out there Friday afternoon. And boy we’re glad we did because the sun actually came out while we were there. Yes it was cold, but back among the trees, out of the wind, it was magical.
There’s a lot of content in the 765 images I took. Seven Hundred, Sixty-Five! That’s crazy! We were only out there maybe 2 hours. OK…maybe 3 hours. That’s 255 images an hour, or about 4 every minute…a picture every 15 seconds? Thank goodness it’s digital!
Anyway.
The biggest reason I wanted to be out there with my camera was to find the redheaded woodpecker. Hard to believe that until a couple years ago I had no idea there was such a bird in my area. But then I saw pictures online from Kensington and one winter day I saw him myself!
Now that I know what part of the park I’m most likely to see him, I steered my small party in that direction. Along the way we ran into a couple of other photographers (recognizable by the extra long, super cool 800mm lenses on their cameras) and spent a long time talking to them about camera bodies, lens length, f-stops, tips for bird photography and… wait for it…while we were standing there, 5 people talking camera stuff, the redheaded woodpecker arrived, with much noise and fanfare.
Now that I’ve heard him I will be able to find him more easily because he makes a noise different than all the other woodpeckers around. He was definitely interested in us, just as I was interested in him.
One of the guys with the big camera lens told us that if we threw a whole peanut up in the air the woodpecker would come off the tree trunk and grab that peanut right out of the air! Since we did, indeed, have a peanut like that, he volunteered to throw it so we could try to get a picture of the bird in flight.
I failed miserably, shooting wildly and blindly, but I did get one image of the bird flying, kind of in focus, and I’m proud to have gotten that much!
We had so much fun and spent almost 2 hours standing in one place a bit further along the trail, at a magical tree that was filled with all sorts of birds. Even the redheaded guy came back around. But that all will have to be saved for another post.
I have lots of editing to do!
Things that can fly…or searching for a comet
Not only have there been lots of colorful lights in our night skies, there’s also been a comet. Or so I’m told. It’s not the kind of comet that shines brightly in the sky, it’s more reticent than that. Less showy.
Of course that makes it all the more alluring for night photographers, professional and armature alike. I went out on two successive nights to try to find the comet.
The first night neighbors and I met on a dirt road outside of town with an unrestricted view to the west. It should have been perfect. But though we stood out there, eyes turned toward the sky, scanning back and forth for over an hour we didn’t see it. We did however figure out we needed a heavier coat, hat and gloves if we were ever to do this again.
Oh, it was there all right — plenty of people posted images from that night. But we didn’t see it. Perhaps it wasn’t dark enough where we stood. Perhaps those clouds hanging low on the horizon obscured our view. Perhaps the nearly full moon rising behind us as the sun set was to blame.
Or maybe it was all of that combined. Regardless, we headed home empty handed. And very cold.
The next evening I met a fellow Milky Way student out at my favorite park, where we planned to show her daughter the birds that come down to eat out of people’s hands, and then head to a dark place along the lake to look for the comet.
Before we even headed out to look for the birds we got to see other flying things.
I rarely head out to feed the birds in late evening, but we tried. She did get a few birds to come down from their sleepy roosts to get a bedtime snack, but not many.
We didn’t see many birds that evening, but we did see other things flying.
Though at first we weren’t quite sure what it was.
Meanwhile, my friend’s daughter’s new best friend was a chipmunk who stuffed himself with seeds, ran off to deposit them some safe place for later and ran right back to get more seed multiple times. I think he has enough provisions to get him through the winter now.
As we were driving to our chosen comet viewing location we noticed the big orange moon was rising. I made a hard, quick right and we pulled in along a couple dozen other photographers, focused on the beautiful rising moon.
You’ll have to take my word for it. It was bright orange and rising up above the trees, reflecting in the lake. I didn’t have my camera set up for a moon shot, it wasn’t on a tripod. As I was messing with all of that the moment passed, as it does so often in photography.
As the sky turned red and then darkened we hurried to the spot we hoped would be perfect for comet viewing. A beach, deserted, gave us a perfect view of the night sky. But where was that comet?
We had come armed with instructions from other, successful, comet photographers — descriptions of where it was in the sky, how many degrees from this star or that formation. We tried it all, pointing our cameras in all sorts of directions, hoping.
And then my friend’s 22 year old daughter, bored with the old folks and their expensive equipment, raised her phone to the sky, shot one image and said…”It’s right there.”
And bingo. Knowing exactly where to shoot, even though we couldn’t see it, made all the difference. We couldn’t even see it in our images, unless we zoomed way in. So we might have gotten shots of it and not even known, would never have known, without the young women’s gift.
So there you have it. The comet who’s name I can’t pronounce or even spell. The elusive, sneaky, fading comet who will be back to visit in a mere 80,000 years. Or is it 800,000?
I’ll have those camera settings down by then. How about you?
Almost Walktober?
How many of you know what a Walktober is? Not everybody? Let me take a moment and explain.
Many years ago Robin, over at her blog, Breezes at Dawn, introduced me and others to the idea of taking a walk in October, blogging about it and then linking our posts back to her blog.
People walked from all over the USA, Canada, and from the rest of the world too! She’d collect all our stories and then at an appointed time, perhaps early November, would post on her blog a roundup of sorts, a collection of all our posts, where everyone could read about all the walks.
Robin coordinated this event for years and then last year she needed some support as she was busy with other things, so I did the collection and roundup part.
I think this year there is another person scheduled for this role, but I’m not sure. I’m going to try to find out.
But regardless, I think we can put a successful Walktober together, even if there is no one else able to coordinate the effort. I can always do it again, no problem at all.
Sooo….would you like to go on a walk and show us your part of the world?
As Robin always says, it doesn’t have to be an actual walk. You can go for a jog or a bike ride. You might travel in a car or a train or a subway. Maybe you’ll want to hop, skip or jump your way around. Any way you want to do it is good, just show us your world!
Lots of people choose to take their walk in the woods, showing us what fall (or spring if you’re in the southern hemisphere) looks like where they live, but I’ve done a Walktober in downtown Detroit and that was fun too. I’ve also done a Walktober in my own backyard, and one at my family’s house in Alabama.
It just depended on where I was and what I could find that you might like.
Maybe you’ll be on a vacation somewhere in October, that would be interesting to share with us. I was just in Washington DC and I could have used photos from there, but I think I’ll try to find somewhere different this month to share for my Walktober.
While I’m working on the logistics, you take a few moments and think about where you’d like to take us on your Walktober!
The photos in this post are from a walk at my favorite park, taken in the middle of September with a friend. This park has been featured in many of my Walktobers, and might be again.
But we’ll see.
And finally…
As I was leaving Kensington, having been run out of town on the trails by the little birds, and on the boardwalk by a marauding swan and a big group of kids, I stopped at a little picnic area, off the beaten path.
I thought maybe the birds there would be more forgiving, since they don’t get many visitors. I turned on my Merlin app and let it record the birds singing as it identified who was nearby.
A vireo, a common yellow throat, a warbler, a bluebird, a flicker, a red winged blackbird. And of course a robin.
I could hear the vireo and the common yellow throat coming from down near the marsh, so I crept that way. I spent a long time standing still staring up at a cottonwood tree that I’m pretty sure hid the yellow throat. But I never saw anything move.
I’d already been out at the park for hours and I was hungry, having forgotten to bring myself anything to eat either. So I headed back toward the car, past the picnic pavilion where I saw this little guy.
Well, it’s not a photogenic location, but heck, it’s a bluebird. Right?
He flew up into a tree and then over to the outhouse building. Still not a photogenic location, but the sun was pretty on him there.
He bounced around there, from the corner of the building down to the ground up into a tree and back to the building again. Then I lost track of him, couldn’t find him anywhere.
I decided it was time to go home, and I turned around to head to the car and, little stinker, there he was on the path right next to me!
It was as if he was laughing at me as I took my third, not photogenic, photo of him just because he was beautiful.
And then he flew up into a branch and stayed there, posing until I got the shot.
Well thank you kindly, Mr. Bluebird, for playing along. You sure made me smile that afternoon! And I’m still smiling today!
Bird worthy
So let’s see….I was a miserable failure according to the little birds over on the nature trails, so I decided to go out to the boardwalk to see what if anything was going on at the heron rookery.
Every year I try to get out there frequently in the spring to watch the littles grow up. But I never get there enough, and this year I missed all of it.
Cause the littles weren’t so little anymore!
It was about mid-day and most of the feeding activity had apparently already happened. There wasn’t much in the way of adults flying around.
But there was still enough activity to initiate a few anxious moments as the teenagers determined if the adult flying in was their adult.
Disappointment ran rampant.
I enjoyed watching this mama (or daddy?) heron working on their nest.
After she got it the way she wanted it she rested a moment, shook her feathers and then sat back down.
I think it’s a little late for eggs to still be there but maybe she has some late arrival babies in there.
Mostly the adults just seemed tired of all the noise and chaos.
I wasn’t getting anything all that exciting when a group of kids showed up and I figured it was time to go.
But then I took a few more pictures of stuff…
and as I was doing that I saw this swan flying toward me.
Directly at me, actually,
Until he (or she) was right there in front of me and then overhead. It was amazing and resulted in my favorite shots of the day.
Things like being in the flight path of a swan make me want to go out there every day. I was definitely smiling as I headed for the car.
And I smiled some more when I stopped at a little picnic area on my way out of the park. But that will have to wait.
Change Is Hard 