Remembered my DSLRs this time-D500 with 500pF attached & D850 with 300pF attached. Partly cloudy to mostly sunny. High wind from the East kept the birds all flying low and very fast. About 51 F-very cool for this time of year. Not much activity but I did manage to capture a few good shots. The great light allowed me to keep ISOs delightfully low.

The Bald Eagle flew about 25 feet from my head. Just outside the 500pF min focus distance!

My first Green Heron. A pair actually. Fun to watch them move from spot to spot looking for fish.

Tote is some kind of cargo ship hauling what I do not know. I like the mountains in the background.

Driftwood is all over the place on the beach at Point-No-Point.

Red Hot Pokers just blooming.

Caspian Tern flew, actually almost hovered next to me in the wind.

The last shot is a Bald Eagle searching the beach as it was low tide. He had no luck during the time I was there.

No otter the time.

Download and enjoy!

Ponce Inlet, FL
Nov 2021

Semipalmated Plover by Paul Sager, on Flickr


Located just south of Daytona Beach, the Ponce Preserve Municipal Park covers 41-arces between the Halifax River to the Atlantic Ocean coast of central Florida.

Willet


The sanderling is a small plump sandpiper. A sanderling in winter plumage can be mistaken for a dunlin or red knot.

Sanderling


Digital images shared in this post were captured in RAW using an EOS 5DIII and the EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II and Extender EF 2x III. Processing was performed in Lightroom v6 and noise processing in Topaz DeNoise6. The camera was mounted to a tripod with gimbal head.

Sanderling


You’ll most often see Sanderlings in nonbreeding plumage, when they are very pale overall: light gray above and white below, with a blackish mark at the shoulder.

Sanderling

I got a late start yesterday on a birding/photography trip to Bolsa Chica Wildlife Preserve in Huntington Beach, CA. Arriving around 11:20 AM, I started in the Northeast in an area referred to as Brightwater. The first thing I noticed was how few birds were out. An earlier start (like 7:00 AM) would have probably have found many more birds to view and maybe photograph. Most of the ducks have migrated. The sun was bright and moving overhead, so you won't see any golden hour photos here. Postprocessing helped me deal with the hard, deep shadows. I then worked around the Pocket Pond area until 12:30 PM. Driving down Pacific Coast Highway, I renewed my trek across the walkbridge and through the main wetlands. I found around 40 Least Terns in the designated and protected Least Tern nesting area and was lucky to capture shots of the rare and threatened Beldings Savannah Sparrow on the ground or in its preferred pickleweed environment. Brown and American White Pelicans, Double-crested Cormorants, Western and Ring-billed Gulls, and a few wading birds like Killdeer, Marbled Godwits, and Black-necked Stilts were often too far away for decent photographs, even with my Nikkor 200-500 mm zoom lens. The noise of Caspian, Elegant, Least and Forster's Terns filled the air and the birds offered some nice photo ops. As I returned to my car across the walkbridge, another birder pointed out where he'd been watching a Ridgeway's (Clapper) Rail walking along the shore. Just then the rail appeared, walking around a corner behind the shoreline plantlife. Hurrying back to the parking lot, I was was able to snap off one not quite sharp and distant photo. It was a warm, sunny day with a nice ocean breeze, and in the end, I had some decent photo opportunities. Hope you enjoy some of these.

jak

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