Crops & Clips: Favorite outtakes

Getting out a half hour before sunrise on our local wetlands creates a photographic challenge. At first it is simply too dark. By the time we reach the lake it is about 20 minutes before sunrise, so this photo of a Great Blue Heron is not "pixel perfect." Yet, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it looked like an ink sketch.

Great Blue Heron before dawn, March 27, 2012:



A Green Heron perched against the rising sun on July 10, 2018. I liked its energetic posture:



Terribly underexposed images of Mottled Duck before sunrise, July 3, 2018:







Even though these photos nearly ended up on the digital dustbin, they impart a serene kind of beauty in form and action, if not in feather detail.

This past week the dust blown in from Africa is working its magic, providing us with rosy pink sunrises. I like to walk out to the west end of this "peninsula" and listen as the open lake carries in the sounds of distant bird calls and songs:



This is the view to my left, along the eastern and southern shores:



Too much light can also be a problem. As the sun rises, the white plumage of the egrets reflects its rays and requires adjustment of the exposure. (Taken with my Canon EOS 80D with a fixed 420 mm lens system at f/5.6 and exposure of 1/800 sec, ISO 160 and compensation reduced  by 2 full stops to capture the egret's feather detail):



I have been experimenting with early morning flight shots. Luckily, at 6:42 AM yesterday (July 18), two minutes after sunrise, an adult Bald Eagle flew over the lake. It was too far away to grace the pages of "National Geographic," but I documented it for my eBird report:



Remarkably, only four minutes later, an immature (first year) Bald Eagle flew in the same direction, almost over my head! It was the female eaglet from the nest we have been monitoring for over 8 years. Despite the short range, I did not capture much detail, but I thought the bird looked majestic just the same. Curiously, she was carrying some vegetation in her talons:





Last week two Pileated Woodpeckers flew by and then roosted together atop a power pole at the far end of the wetland patch:



Red "mustaches" identify them both as males. One hammered for a moment and then they exchanged a few unpleasant words before flying away:



Earlier this month I caught sight of a Bobcat as it crossed the gravel road about 1/4 mile away. I shot a burst of about a dozen images before it disappeared. They were very blurry, so I stitched some of them together to display them in sequence (click to enlarge):
 
 

On July 13 I had to settle for another very "bad" photo, when the Coyote (first ever seen in this area and discovered a month earlier by my neighbor Scott) suddenly appeared along the path. 

It  stared right at me from a range of over 100 yards. As soon as I reached for the camera it turned and fled. In the space of one second I captured 5 images of its tail end before it disappeared. I will not brag about the quality of the photo, but this one is a "keeper." 



Another "first" sighting for my location this week was a Northern Curly-tailed Lizard. Native to The Bahamas, they were deliberately released in Palm Beach County to control insects in the sugar cane fields:





On my way home I stay on the (east) shady side of the road:


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Linking to Misty's  CAMERA CRITTERS,

Linking to Eileen's SATURDAY'S CRITTERS,

Linking to SKYWATCH FRIDAY by Yogi, Sylvia and Sandy

Linking to WEEKEND REFLECTIONS by James

Linking to BirdD'Pot by Anni

Linking to Our World Tuesday by Lady Fi

Linking to Wild Bird Wednesday by Stewart

Linking to Wordless Wednesday (on Tuesday) by NC Sue

Linking to ALL SEASONS by Jesh

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Please visit the links to all these memes to see some excellent photos on display

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