I'm attending Jim Neiger's Fly South with the Birds
workshop. Today was our first morning and we met at the boat dock at 7:00 am. The weather is great and there are tons of birds. Being a weekend, there are also many other boaters and duck hunters all around the lake. For anyone who's not familiar with this workshop, it's to learn how to photograph birds in flight with long telephotos handheld. Here are a few shots from this morning. All of them are handheld with the 500 f/4, except for the G10 snapshots. We are meeting again this afternoon so hopefully I'll have some more to post!
Sandhill crane:
Snail kite, a female. This is the most endangered raptor in North America. I didn't get a good look at one flying yet, but we still have several days for more opportunities.
Practicing my technique on a turkey vulture. Getting BIF against a sky background, especially a large bird like this, is definitely much easier than a varied background. As the workshop progresses, I hope to get better at the latter.
Me in action:
While we were watching the snail kite, this idiot pulls up and asks if we are shooting movies. Then when we mentioned the kite (which is next to us on the right), he proceeds to lecture us on how he wished the birds were gone because they are interfering with his precious recreational activities, complaining how the DNR manages the water levels to accomodate the kite nesting. Meanwhile, his dog is barking the whole time. Then he flooded his engine!
I thought these reflections in the water were cool. Taken with the G10 in manual mode.
