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all creatures great and small

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DSC_0800 Black crowned heron
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DSC_0800 Black crowned heron

Clove Lakesspringbirdsheronsblack crowned night heronStaten IslandnatureNYC

  • "Be honest, does my breath smell like mackerel?"
  • Having to leave the zoo early to go meet a friend for the movies, I slipped my lenses into my bag and quickly left the Butterfly garden. I didn't even know the place existed before today, and I didn't bring any close-up lenses with me. More frustrating, I brought my longest telephoto's with me for my visit to the World of Birds, but it was closed because of damage from all the heavy snow we received this winter. Walking back through the Bronx woods (of which the zoo was built on) I ran by a babbling brook that had a group of ducklings swimming in it. At least I had the right lens in my bag for that.
  • DSC_7447 gull gliding on the breeze
  • Walking under the trees in the rain, I liked the back lit leaves then spotted this symmetry.
  • DSC_7633 white bleeding hearts after the rain
  • Much more rare round these parts than regular (pink) bleeding hearts, the last time I ran across white ones in my travels was almost 20 years ago at the Central Park zoo. I didn't have my 200mm micro lens on me at the time, so in order to get the reach I needed I attached a 52mm extension tube to my 300mm f4.5. I got a wonderfully framed shot, but the resulting image ended up being only sharp enough for an 8 x 10 enlargement at best. So today when I finally ran across some more at the Brooklyn Botanical gardens I had to stop and try again.<br /> <br /> I was headed for the Terrace cafe to get something to eat, because I was cold wet and hungry on this damp sub 50 degree day. But this time I had my 200mm micro with me, and I chose to ignore my empty stomach to add a much desired subject to my collection. By the way this is the other old manual focus Nikkor of mine I had Focal Point Inc. repair from bad fungus damage. As you can see they did a fantastic job.
  • Walking through the Chinese Gardens here at Snug Harbor on a weekday in May the sky was clear and the grounds, serene. However being that it was a Thursday and not a weekend when more folks are off, it was a bit too devoid of people for my tastes, especially as I don't care to take pictures of places built for people to enjoy that have no people in them.<br /> <br /> Not wanting to wait forever for the few people there to walk over spots that would make for a great scenic picture, I started to leave, but as I walked through a passage that ran over the large pond in the center of the grounds, my eye spotted some unusual movement in a pine tree just a few feet off to my left which caused me to stop dead in my tracks. I pulled one of the headphones out of my ear to see if my ears could help my eyes find the source of the movement. A few seconds later I spotted these baby birds, well hidden inside the pine tree shuffling about for position in their nest. As people passed to and fro, none of them spotted this well hidden robins nest just 5 feet from them until I pointed out what I was photographing. It was fascinating for us to discover something both so hidden and yet so close, a very pleasant surprise on a wonderful day during my vacation.
  • DSC_7885 robin's nest
  • DSC_8088 lunch is served
  • Trying to get a clear shot of one of the parents feeding the young proved to be impossible no matter what angle I tried, this shot was probably the best one.
  • DSC_8112 robin's nest
  • DSC_8632 the flowers of Battery Park City in the spring
  • Walking through Battery Park on my way uptown one spring morning, led me to discover the park was filled with butterflies, how nice.
  • Nobody noticed this little guy resting among the bamboo stalks here at the Chinese Gardens. Some workers found him in the morning floundering in the water, and they fished the baby bird out before he drowned, and set him here out of the way. Despite his near death experience it seems he's in pretty good shape - until that is, it gets time for him to eat.
  • Here he is again. On the same group of rocks in front of the same waterfall here at Clove lake where I first discovered him almost a year earlier to the day. If you've "leafed" through my galleries you've probably discovered that I add new pictures in more or less chronological order. If you follow that order you may remember seeing my first picture this guy 8 months ago practically standing at this very same spot. <br /> <br /> My first encounter and photo attempt last spring ended miserably as all I got of him was a fuzzy shot of him taking off from these rocks as I attempted to get a shot of him against the waterfall as a cool looking back ground. I was at least 50 yards away from him as I crossed over the rocks across the stream in an attempt to stay FAR back and not spook him. But at that point he was probably a new visitor to the lake (at least during the day time anyway), and not used to people. In that kind of scenario your bound to fail as you just can't sneak up on a bird. Never ever ever ever. <br /> <br /> By our second encounter last summer he had become much more used to people. Other wild herons, cormoran's, egrets, that come here often eventually ignore people, as most are walking their baby carriages, dogs or jogging and never pay attention to them. I believe the lack of attention by other wild birds to us eventually gets the new skittish visitors to relax a bit. I usually try to mimic the movements of other people passing through the lake for as long as possible as I make my slow winding non threatening trek towards my prize. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. This time it worked. As again I got really close to him. Though not quite as close as the shot I got of him last August. Nor did my luck hold as long as, if I recall correctly, some kids making noise playing near by combined with my camera's steady eye on him proved to be more than he felt like putting up with, as after 4 or 5 minutes he flew up into a tree. But not before I was able to get this shot of him at his favorite "fishing hole".
  • DSC_0800 Black crowned heron
  • These terns with their erratic movements, are a heck of a lot harder than gulls to track in flight. Making them even better subjects to practice focusing on in flight. One day all this practice will pay off in one heck of a great nature shot at one of the islands large lakes I regularly visit.
  • DSC_1097 scenes from Butterfly Gardens
  • DSC_1100 scenes from Butterfly Gardens
  • DSC_1125 swollowtail butterfly
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