Wilderness Images

In 2006, The Audubon Society listed the tiny Kirtland’s Warbler as the fifth most endangered bird species, behind the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, California Condor, Whooping Crane, and Gunnison Sage Grouse. in 1989, the total population was estimated to be around 200 total birds.  The main reason for the decline of this species is the loss of suitable nesting habitat. You see, this bird has very specific habitat needs. It requires young jack pine forest, growing in very well drained sandy soil, with trees between 5 and 15 feet tall, under which it builds its nest. Current fire management practices has greatly reduced the normally natural occurrence of this habitat type. Michigan’s Department of Natural Resources now manages 150,000 acres of jack pine forest specifically for this bird.  A practice that has yielded some very good results. The most recent census of singing males recorded over 1,400 individuals with birds recently showing up in other parts of their historic range as well, like Ontario and Wisconsin.  Certainly a bird that is not yet out of danger, but at least is no longer at the brink of extinction.

I have made the trip to northern Michigan at least a half a dozen times in an attempt to photograph the Kirtland’s Warbler with limited success.  I could usually hear the bird singing and often catch a glimpse of one or two as they flitted among the branches, but getting a nice clean shot of one had always alluded me. Until this summer when I came across a bird that was feeding on insects along the edge of a stand of jack pine that happened to border the road I was searching from.  This particular bird gave me fifteen minutes with it which is an eternity with a warbler. I was finally able to get some of the images I had dreamt of on all of those previous trips.  It certainly is rewarding to not only be able to see such a rare and beautiful bird but to be able to make some images as well truly is, the icing on the cake.

Male Kirtland’s Warbler

Male Kirtland’s Warbler

Male Kirtland’s Warbler in Song on Jack Pine Cone

Due to the fact that I had shows scheduled on the weekends when Michigan’s upper peninsula’s fall color is at it’s peak (the Porcupines usually peak during the last week of September and the rest of the upper typically fires up around the first weekend of October) I really thought I wouldn’t be able to do any shooting up there this year.  Luckily, I caught a break as we had an unusually wet summer and a very mild early fall.  The color was a week late this year, so I was able to take a few days and go up and work fall color. 

We struggled a little with the weather because we had bright sunny, windy days. We did however, manage to get some shots but we worked hard for what we got.  I say we because I travelled up with two good friends who I have had many great adventures with.  Nature photography is often a solo endeavor and I really enjoy that part of it.  While I enjoy being alone in the wilderness with my thoughts and chosen subjects, it is also very nice to be able to share these experiences with good friends. The friendships and comaraderie I have developed with other photographers as we travelled the beautiful spots of the world is very special to me.  I would say in my travels I have met hundreds, no probably, thousands of nature photographers and as a group they are some of the nicest people I know. 

Here are a few fall images from Michigan’s upper penninsula.  These first few images are a theme that I am often on the lookout for as I work fall color.  What is happening in these images is, I am shooting a small section of a stream that is in the shade, with the water reflecting fall color that is fully lite by the sun.  What is nice about working this subject is that it is usually something that can be done in the middle of a bright sunny day when my gear would usually be packed up as I am scouting evening locations.

Reflections of Fall

Au Train Falls Section

This next shot was created using a much slower shutter speed in an attempt to call attention to the quite water captured in the rock’s crevace.

Quite Pool

The following image is another subject you can work when the wind is blowing.  This image shows crimson blueberry leaves with a couple of fern fronds. Because these plants grow close to the ground they are not blown by the wind as much as taller foliage.

Blueberry and Fern Fronds

On the final day we did get a morning with nice light and calm winds and I was able to make this next couple of images.

Colors of the Northwoods

Autumn Lake and Reeds 

Here are some examples of different creatures using camouflage to blend in with their environment.

  

Basically the way that I am able to freeze such high speed action is by using a special electronic flash that puts out an incredibly short burst of light (between 1/15,000 to 1/50,000 of a sec.).  This brief pulse of light is what freezes the subject.  Most commercially available flash systems produce a seemingly fast 1/1,000sec burst of light but that is not nearly fast enough for what I am interested in doing.  Early on I learned that if I dialed these normal flash units down to 1/16th power I could achieve flash bursts on the order of 1/15,000sec. I did this for awhile and was able to do some interesting work.  The problem was when you turn a flash down to 1/16th power you cut the light output dramatically. This can be overcome however, by moving the lights in closer to the subject, but this can be a problem with larger or skittish subjects.

The answer I determined was to find a dedicated high-speed flash system.  The only system like this that I had ever heard of was made many years ago by a man named Ken Olson and is no longer in production. Used units were and still are impossible to find. I had also heard that these units could be dangerous to use because of the high voltage involved (as much as 3,500 volts was being passed through the cables connecting the capacitors to the flashheads) If you had a short in the system or a frayed cable this was certainly enough voltage to knock you on your rearend, and would very likely, be lethal.  So I gave up for a while and made due with what I had.  Then a few years later while doing an Internet search I came across a company called Fotronix which was making exactly what I was looking for. I called and spoke with Roy Dunn the owner of the company and he informed me that unfortuntely there was not enough interest in the product (this is pretty specialized stuff) to continue production.  I was in luck however because, he had one set left, a four flash head unit. I of course, sent him a check that day.  I tested them out the day I received them and they were just what I had been looking for. I was able to get flash durations on the order of 1/20,000sec. and shoot with the lights 4 1/2 feet from my subjects at F22 with an ASA of 100.

The first subject I tackled with my new system was a house wren family that had built there nest in a nestbox near my home. For this setup, I used an infrared beam device called a Dale Beam to trip the camera. The Dale Beam works by emitting an infrared beam that when broken, fires the camera it is connected to.  I  placed this unit so the beam was across the entrance to the nestbox. When the parent house wrens returned to the nest, they break the beam and fire the camera, virtually taking their own picture.  While I relax in my blind drinking cafe lattes.

Here is an image showing the setup I would use to photograph the house wren nest. This nest was about one mile through the woods from my home, I used a wheelbarrow to get all of this equipment to the site.

HIGH SPEED FLASH SETUP AT WREN NEST

  And here are a couple of images I made of that pair of wrens.

HOUSE WREN BRINGING GRASSHOPPER TO YOUNG

HOUSE WREN LEAVING NEST

This next high speed flash image is from a Barn Swallow nest that I photographed last summer.  This pair of birds chose to nest under the eaves of a picnic pavilion about 10 miles from my house.  A friend had told me about the birds the year before and I made a note to check back the following spring.  For this shoot, I decided not to use the Dale Beam because the birds did not have a predictable flight path.  So instead I fired the camera myself when the birds were in the area I was setup for.  The trick to this type of photography is getting a frame where the wings are in a pleasing composition. I took thousands of pictures to get a few good ones. This one in my opinion is the best of the bunch not only because of the adults wing position but also because of the way all of the chicks are lined up.

BARN SWALLOW FEEDING YOUNG

This final image is something a little different. This photo shows a skullcap fungus (commonly known as a puffball).  This fungus reproduces by releasing millions of tiny spores when it is disturbed such as when it is stepped on by a passing animal or something falls on it from above. I tried to give the illusion that the acorns had just fallen from a tree above the fungus and had released the spores.  The truth is I used a needle to “stick” the acorns out in front of the puffball, being careful that the needle didn’t show in the final image.   Then I dropped many different items into the puffball trying to get the… please pardon the pun… “mushroom cloud” of spores I was looking for.  Then it was just a matter of getting the timing right because I was tripping the camera myself.

SKULLCAP FUNGUS RELEASING SPORES

 

After my trip to the Galapagos Islands, we took a few extra days and went into the cloud forests of Ecuador, mainly to photograph hummingbirds. Ecuador has 130 of the world’s 330 species of hummingbirds.  I visited many of the well known lodges in the Mindo valley and ended up photographing about a dozen different species of hummingbirds and many different tanagers as well as other birds, in short the birds were incredible.

I ended up bringing my high speed flash system with me to Ecuador to shoot the hummingbirds. This is part of the reason that my 150 pounds of luggage consisted of only about 10 pounds of clothes and personal items and 140 pounds of camera equipment.  The setup for this type of photography is extremely  involved and consists of four flash heads, a background, light stands, all of the necessary cables, clamps, and cords as well as a flower for the hummingbirds to feed on, and of course, my camera. I use a high speed flash system that was made by a company called Fotronix, which unfortunately is no longer available.  The Fotronix system is very powerful and produces a flash burst of about 1/20,000 of a second which is what is needed to stop the wings of a hummingbird in flight.  Most of the people I traveled with were shooting Nikon SB800s and SB600s dialed down to 1/16th power.  While this was not nearly as powerful as my system, but it seemed adequate for the job. I have to say that I was envious of the quick flash recycle times they were achieving with that setup.

I was pleasantly surprised at how much easier it is doing this type of photography with digital. Since digital cameras provides instant feedback, I can very easily confirm that all of the flashes are firing and are properly balanced.  Back in the days of film, I wouldn’t have seen any potential problems until I received the film back from the lab which was obviously, less than ideal.

A male Empress Brilliant

A Velvet-purple Coronet

An Andean Emerald hummingbird in song

Another Empress Brilliant

And finally a couple of shots of the spectacular Violet-tailed Sylph

I have to say the Galapagos Islands is nature photography Nirvana. It really was unlike anything I had experienced before.  I have been blessed on many occasions to have many of my subject’s accept me as part of their natural world, but that has typically come after many hours, days, weeks, months, or even years spent earning my subject’s  trust.  On the Galapagos Islands, the animals for the most part accept you the moment you step on shore.  I had a friend tell me before I left that it was like going to the zoo and being behind the bars. Having experienced it I would have to say his description was accurate.

I went with sixteen other people either photographers or spouses of photographers, most of which knew each other.  We chartered the whole boat and had our own guide.  This was absolutely the best way to do this, because we had total control of our schedule. We were able to get on the islands at first light for our morning shoots and stay until sunset for our evening shoots.  In fact, the few times we saw other groups of people on the islands they were just arriving at 10 or 11am when we were on our way back to our boat after having shot all morning.  Not only are most animals less active during the middle of the day but, being on the equator the light gets harsh very quickly after sunrise, unless you have some clouds to soften the light (which we often did). 

On a typical day we would wake up at 5:30 a.m.,  have breakfast,  get on the island by sunrise and shoot until around 11a.m. Then back to the boat where we would download our images, have lunch, then go out for an afternoon snorkel.  I have to say, having never been snorkeling before I really wasn’t looking forward to that aspect of the trip.  That all changed after the first dive, it was amazing. We saw all kinds of tropical fish, sharks, and even spent about a half an hour one day swimming with sea lions which was unforgettable.  Next time I go I will have a better underwater camera with me for sure.  After snorkeling, we would return to the boat, cruise to another landing or another island.  This would give us time to review the morning’s shoot, have a little siesta, if one was so inclined, and then back on an island for the evening shoot.  At sunset, we would return to the boat and have dinner. The food was very good and there was plenty of it, which was good because we really worked up an appetite.  After dinner we would usually have a cocktail (or two) on deck, and discuss our game plan for the next day.  During the night while we slept we would cruise to the next island.  We were on the islands a total of 7 days, I think we visited 9 or 10 of the islands.

I am planning on leading a photography trip to the Galapagos Island in the fall of 2009.  If you are interested in getting more information, on this trip as it becomes available please send me an email steve@stevegettle.com and I will followup with you when more information becomes available.

One of the most charismatic birds on the islands would have to be the blue-footed boobies.  We had many opportunities to photograph their courtship ritual where the male shows off his brilliant blue feet to his prospective mate.  While they look rather ungainly on land, to see them transform into a knife as they dive in the ocean in search of fish was really something.

Another bird that we saw on many of the islands was the frigate bird. The male of this species builds a nest and then tries to attract a mate to the nest.  He does this by inflating his gula pouch a large red air sac on his throat.  Then as a prospective mate flies overhead, he spreads his wings and shakes his red pouch (if you are a female frigate bird “that’s hot”).

There are two types of iguana on the islands.  The marine iguana (below on the left) feed on seaweed in the ocean.  When they get too cold from being in the water, they must sun themselves to get there body temperature back up. I really liked the patterns on the rock this guy was on.  The iguana on the right is a land iguana. This particular fella looked like he had been hitting the gym, he had some great “pecs”.

Here are a couple of portraits I liked. The first shot of a sea lion was made while the sea lion was in full sun with the background being in deep shade. I think it really calls attention to her whiskers.  The next image is of a sally light-foot crab. These beautiful crabs were everywhere. After a few days I had to force myself to stop shooting them.

There were even a couple of birds on the islands you wouldn’t expect to see. There is a small population of flamingos on the island. The one pictured below is stretching his wings or perhaps it is some type of courtship display, I am not sure. We also saw a lot of yellow warblers similar to our yellow warblers here in the states but with a rusty brown patch on the top of there head. We were also lucky enough to be there while the waved albatross where nesting on Espanola island. With a wing span of over 7 feet they are amazing to see. We saw one take off from the edge of a cliff and he never even flapped his wings. He just spread his massive wings and fell into the wind. 

One of the more striking birds we saw was the red-billed tropic bird. These beautiful birds nest on cliffs near the ocean.  They are however, a favorite target for frigate birds. Frigate birds are also known as the pirates of the air because of their kleptoparasitic feeding behavior, which is a fancy way of saying they steal food from other birds.  The frigate birds watch for birds returning from their feeding areas with food in their gullet for their chicks. They grab these birds in mid-air causing them to disgorge the food it was bringing to it’s chick. The frigate bird then release it’s captive and chases after this tasty reward (yuck).

After the Galapagos, I went and shot in the cloud forests of Ecuador where I shot mostly high-speed flash photography of hummingbirds.  I will get some of those images up in my next post.

Well I just returned from my trip to the Galapagos Islands and the cloud forests of Ecuador. It was a great trip and a real adventure.  I shot over 6500 pictures over the course of two weeks.  It will take me some time to get through the editing process but in the mean time I thought I would post a few more bird pictures from this spring.  These birds are not warblers they are however some of the more colorful birds we have here in Michigan.  Although having just spent two weeks in Ecuador with some of the fantastic birds down there these guys kind of look like pikers.

Male Scarlet Tanager

Male Rose-breasted Grosbeak

Male Indigo Bunting

I will try to get some images posted soon from my recent trip.

Here are some more images I made during this years warbler migration.  I have to say that we really never did have a great fallout day of warblers this year.  A fallout day is when you get a large arrival of migrating warblers that have been blown into an area. This often happens when there is a low pressure area south of us which then spins birds up to us on southerly winds (the birds take advantage of these winds to help them on their journey north).  This year that never really happened.  The winds seemed to be out of the north during most of May. This caused the birds to just kind of dribble through on their way north.  But fortunately, I was able to spend a large amount of time out in the field this year and I was able to put together a collection of images that I am very pleased with.

Here is a photograph of a black and white warbler.  This particular individual was a very handsome specimen.  Most of the black and whites I see look a little scruffy, this guy was feather perfect.

Black and White Warbler

Blue-winged Warbler with Worm

This flashy fellow is a blackburnian warbler which is always a crowd pleaser with bird watchers

Blackburnian Warbler in Song

Soon I will be leaving for a trip to the Galapagos Islands and the cloud forests of Ecuador.  In the Galapagos, I hope to photograph the amazing plants and animals of this unique island habitat. I will be bringing my high-speed flash setup to the cloud forest to attempt to photograph hummingbirds on the wing.  Ecuador is home to 130 of the worlds 328 species of hummingbirds, hopefully I will be able to get a crack at one or two of them.

At last it’s May.  I have to say I have been looking forward to May ever since last May.  You see, May is the time when tiny colorful birds called warblers grace our local woodlots for a few weeks, as they migrate north.  Last May, was the first time I ever attempted to photograph these tiny birds and I was immediately hooked.  Warbler photography is extremely challenging for a lot of reasons.  First of all, warblers are generally very small about the size of a chickadee (about 4″ long).  Secondly, they are in constant motion as they search for small insects on which they feed (imagine a two year old child with wings after two cups of coffee).  All of these challenges are compounded by the fact that warblers are usually in the woods where there is very little light.  They spend there time picking insects from all the leaves which also hide the birds making it very hard to get a clear view of one of these birds.  It is low percentage shooting, I would estimate that I take a few hundred pictures of warblers for every truly good one I get.

Black-throated Blue Warbler

Here is a more stylistic image of a warbler, a blackpoll, I really like the implied motion in this image.

Blackpoll Warbler

Yellow Warbler in Song

As I mentioned in a previous post, I was invited down to Knoxville Tennessee to put on my multi-media presentation “A Wilderness Year” for the Southern Appalachian Nature Photographers Association.  While I was down in that area, I was able to get a few days shooting in at Great Smoky Mountain National Park.  We really hit the weather lottery the first couple of days.  It is funny most people think us photographers want bright sunny days for photography but the truth is we want different types of light for different subjects.  In the Smokies, I was interested in shooting the wildflowers that were in full bloom.  For that subject matter, the best conditions are bright hazy overcast conditions with intermittent light rain.  This super saturates the colors and lends a nice soft even light in the hardwood forests where many of the spring wildflowers grow.  We were also blessed with very light winds which is also important because often in overcast conditions it is not uncommon to shoot a 2 to 4 second exposure. Obviously if my subject is blowing in the wind during that exposure it will ruin the shot.

After a grey winter spent in Michigan, it can be pretty overwhelming to be confronted with so much green virtually overnight.  It is funny, many times out in the spring woods it seems as if you can actually hear everything around you growing. 

A Symphony in Green

There are many places in the park where the ground was literally carpeted in wildflowers.  Featured in this next image is yellow trillium, purple phacelia, and large-flowered trillium.

A Wildflower Carpet

The other benefit of these slow shutter speeds I spoke of earlier, is that they allow running water to be rendered as a silky blur.  In the image below, the shutter was open for a full three seconds.  This allows the air bubbles trapped in the flowing water to paint themselves as a milky white blur.  A friend I was travelling with found these violets growing in front of this small fall.  I really like the way the violets mimic the shape of the main part of the falls.  I shot this with a wide angle lens my lens ended up being less than six inches away from the flowers.  The toughest part of this shot was getting enough depth of field (the area of sharpness in a photo) to keep everything sharp.

Waterfall and Violets

We even got lucky with a black bear one evening. 

King of the Smokies–Black Bear

Well the ducks really seemed to have migrated through Michigan quickly this year.  I am usually photographing ducks through the entire month of April.  A couple of weeks ago we had strong winds out of the south and I think the ducks took advantage of these winds and continued their journey north.  One of the great things about nature photography is there is always something else to shoot.  The last time I was out in my floating blind there were not many ducks around but I did get a chance to work a subject I have always wanted to shoot from my floating blind, turtles. It must have been one of the first days they had come out of the water to bask in the sun because they were moving very slowly due to the cold temperature of the water.

Pictured here is a Blanding’s Turtle, a species that I don’t see much around here. This turtle’s carapace (that’s a fancy word for shell) was about the size of a basketball cut in half!  I like this picture because he looks utterly exhausted from having hauled himself out of the water and onto this log.

Blanding’ Turtle

I was initially drawn to this log by this one Blanding’s Turtle that was sunning himself and as I was shooting him (or her) painted turtles started to emerge from the water and climb onto this same log.  This was a very popular spot because after a couple of hours I counted 46 turtles on this log all vying for their own place in the sun.

Two’s Company-Painted Turtles

Threes a Crowd-Painted Turtles

I just returned from Tennessee where I put on my slide show “A Wilderness Year” for the great folks at the Southern Appalachian Nature Photographers Association. I was also able to get a few days shooting in at Great Smoky Mountain National Park as well, where the wildflowers where in full bloom I will try to get some images posted from that trip soon.

Well the ice has finally started to leave the lakes here in Michigan.  Which means the way is clear for me to do some of my favorite type of photography, photographing ducks from my floating blind.  Here is a picture of my blind. My camera is mounted on the deck which then has a hole in the middle of it where I stand with waders on and walk along the bottom of the lake with my camera on the deck in front of me, in search of my quarry the elusive duck.

  The SS Charnley named after my good friend and floating blind designer, Dr. Al Charnley

While most people wouldn’t consider spending eight hours standing in ice water up to there nipples an enjoyable way to spend a March morning in Michigan, us nature photographers are an odd lot. One of the things I like best about the floating blind is the very low ‘eye to eye’ perspective I am able to achieve, because my lens is only 6-8 inches off the water.  This low perspective gives the images an intimacy that I really like.

Drake Bufflehead duck taking flight

Drake ring neck duck portrait

 Drake Wood Duck in Flight