Back to the Birds

    It has been almost a month since I've posted about one of my bird photography outings, so after today's shoot I figured now was as good a time as any to get back to talking about one of my favorite subjects to photograph. I'll be getting back to the P7000 and my Banff and Jasper trips over the next few weeks. I did take the P7000 with me today, but my workhorse D300 and 300mm F4 AF-S + TC14E did all the work.

Juvenile Sandhill Crane

    The first photo today is of a juvenile Sandhill Crane, which for those who have been following my blog for a while will know, was born earlier this year in June. The family of three Sandhill Cranes that live in and around the George C Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary have been joined by up to as many as 20 others. This is common during middle stages of the migration season. The Crane families seem to be doing well as there were several other juvenile birds. Due to the mixing of families there were several occasions where the birds would chase each other around, and the winner got the best grub.

    One of the other young Cranes was flying around, and I was able to capture this image. This photo, and several others that I'm showing today, highlight why I love the curves tool in Aperture 3, I was able to balance out the exposure far more. It is nice to get the right exposure right out of the camera, but sometimes that just isn't possible. Thus I use the curves tool to tone down the bright background, making the subject pop out of the background a little more.

    Recent rainfall here in the Greater Vancouver area has caused the water levels in the sanctuary to rise, as a result the Sandhill Cranes are spending more time in the outer marsh, which makes photographing them a little tougher, but more interesting as well. There were plenty of Long Bill Dowitchers still in the Sanctuary, and the first Lesser Snow Geese were spotted late last week. Looks like we are in for another great migration season here on the west coast of Canada.