all creatures great and small

Just in case...

On my trip here to the botanical gardens in the Bronx today, I had a definite agenda of scenes to capture in mind. Finally after capturing the panoramic sequences of the Hester bridge that I wanted, I had traveled to all of them, and could turn my attention to something else, my stomach, as it was at least half past two and I was in definite need of rest and refreshment after lugging around that backpack full of gear all day.

Having just past the old Mill as I walked down Stone Mill road I hung a right when I came to Azalea way, and decided to follow it as I know the tour tram buses take this road on the way back to the Southern Blvd. entrance, as that would put me near the cafe, which is right next to it.

So traveling up the hilly road I started walking with my head up looking this way and that for one tree among the many that might have stood out color wise. Even as much as I wanted to sit down and eat, the colors this fall have been absolutely dreadful, and I didn't want to miss any exceptional trees on a day I actually had my camera with me.

My head turned to the left and I started examining the many trees off to that side of the road, then out of the corner of my eye I spotted a large brown object swooping into the trees off the road on my right. It's colorization blended in perfectly with its surroundings which should have made it hard to spot, yet it was so huge I was still able to easily pick out the tree and branch it landed on. It had to be a bird and a huge one, most likely a hawk of some kind.

Dropping my camera bag to the ground, with one eye I looked through my bag for my second camera, while with my other eye I kept gazing upward, vainly trying to maintain eye contact towards the last direction I saw the giant ball of brown and white fluff land in. Since today was going to be a day of scenic shots and panoramas, my second camera was my D500. If I was headed out to the lake near my house let's say, to capture the local wildlife my D810 would have been my 2nd camera instead. I had even planned to leave my D500 home to save a lot of excess weight, for I would be doing an inordinate amount of hiking, and leaving it and the lenses I normally bring with it on days such as this home would be greatly appreciated by my legs and back.

But at the last minute I relented and put it in my bag anyway just in case, and only brought one lens for it, my new Tamron 18-400mm zoom. Small and light for the incredible range it provides, while not spectacularly sharp for nature shots, it still does an acceptable job of capturing flora and fauna when required. As far as DSLR's go there isn't a more compact combo I could dream of taking in the 1.5x format that is smaller and lighter than this that also gives me this kind of quality and performance, but my back was still aching by days end, which would make one think I was regretting my decision up to this point, but no I wasn't.

I had captured several nice shots of a group of cardinals foraging in a tree next to where I was standing to capture another group of panoramic shots in between daffodil valley and the rock garden. And I would never have been able to if I hadn't brought that combo along just in case, and now at the sight of this hawk I was beside myself with joy over the decision.

I captured numerous shots of him perched in that tree, moving several times out of the way to allow for passing trams. Then I saw the hawk turn and look towards the ground off and behind me to my right. I locked a singular focus point on my prize anticipating him taking flight at any moment, and sure enough he did.

Now my D810 which captured the majority of the scenes I came across today, is a fabulous camera, and fairly versatile. I joked once to some of my friends that if it were a woman I'd marry it. It has many outstanding strengths. Focus and follow of a brown and white bird as it swooped through a gauntlet of brown branches in front of a brownish background, is not one of them. My D500 on the other hand.....

BronxBronx botanical gardensNYCfallbirdshawksred tailed hawks