I realize this post comes a little late for Earth Day. But I usually only publish once a week on the weekends, and on April 22nd I was out enjoying the Earth.
“Earth Day is an annual event, celebrated on April 22, on which day events worldwide are held to demonstrate support for environmental protection. It was first celebrated in 1970″ Wikipedia
I haven’t written anything here about Viera Wetlands lately and decided to head down and see what’s going on there. On the way, I ran into this scene. I really liked the clouds, the way the their edge leads to the sun, the reflections in the calm water, and the illumination on the flowers in the foreground.
Earth Day sunrise by the Arlington / St. Johns River at SR 50, east of Christmas, Florida
I think Viera Wetlands is an proper place to celebrate Earth Day. It’s a water reclamation facility and the very clean water provides a home for many birds and animals. Here’s a link to a chart showing the 233 kinds of birds sighted there, organized by month. Last Thursday, I saw: Alligator, American Coot, Anhinga, Black-bellied Whistling-Duck, Black Vulture, Turkey Vulture, Double-crested Cormorant, Osprey, Great Blue Heron, Great Egret, Snowy Egret, Little Blue Heron,Tricolored Heron, White Ibis, Glossy Ibis, Limpkin, Pied-billed Grebe, Common Gallinule, Grackle, Northern Cardinal, Mockingbird, Least Bittern, and Red-winged Blackbird.
This next photo is interesting. The bird was hiding in the reeds and severely back-lit. I couldn’t really tell what it was but managed to focus through the plants and get a good exposure. At the time I thought it was probably a Green Heron since I’ve seen many of them at Viera. When I got home and could check it on the computer, I realized it was a Least Bittern, a much rarer sighting (for me anyway).
Had I realized it then, I’d have spent more time trying to get a better photo. Two teaching points (remember these, Ed): 1) The camera is a good tool for extending your eyesight. It can see what you sometimes can’t. 2) Always take the photo – you can’t be sure what you’ve got until later.
Least Bittern – I found this little one hiding in the reeds at Viera Wetlands. It was extremely back-lit and hard to see.
Here’s one more somewhat interesting photo from that day. To me, these look like a large sparrow, but they’re actually female Red-winged Blackbirds. If you start trying to ID it by comparing it to different types of sparrows, it’ll take you a while to climb back out of that rabbit hole. The good news is that once you do learn this ID you’re more likely to remember it next time. If you’re interested, here’s a photo of a male.
Female Red-winged Blackbird
Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some photos!
©2015, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.
Thanks for the Viera report Ed. I only went there a couple of times this past migratory season. I really like the sunrise. Did you use anything to illuminate the flowers?
My pleasure, Jim.
Things are slower now at Viera Wetlands than they were earlier in the year, but there’s still a lot to see.
No, I didn’t add any illumination to the flowers. That image is a two frame composite. I made one exposure for the sky, and another for the ground and then blended them together by hand in photoshop. Kind of like a “digital neutral density gradient filter”. There’s more detail about this in this post from a while back.
I also did some local adjustments to enhance the flowers.
Ed
Fascinating, as ever. And great the way you can link back to earlier shots and to more detailed explanations. Oh the power of it all!
I’m glad you found it interesting, Rhona. It is nice to be able to look back and reference info from the past.
Great sunrise shot Ed. Excellent job blending the images and outstanding sharpness from foreground to background!
Thanks Jeff. I do use this technique fairly often. It’s not too hard to do and I like the results too.