Dec. 9, 2013 – Ridgefield NWR – 19 Images

Home » Dec. 9, 2013 – Ridgefield NWR – 19 Images

Dec. 9, 2013 – Ridgefield NWR – 19 Images

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Hi, friends!  Today’s blog post covers pictures I took on Dec. 9, 2013.  It was cold, gray, and icy out.

One excuse for my slowness in getting this post done is because I’ve been setting up a new PC.  My old PC is 4 years old and lately has been running at a crawl.  I was getting real tired of how long it was taking for images to load in Lightroom.  Plus, all of a sudden, one of my most used Photoshop plugins, Nik Color Efex Pro 4, had slowed down to about a third of the speed it used to operate at.  I checked the GPU settings of the plugin and discovered that my graphics card no longer met the requirements for the program to use its processor.  So either Color Efex Pro changed or my graphics card had gone haywire.  You wouldn’t believe the torture involved with this program when GPU is not enabled.  The sliders don’t slide–they jump–and only after waiting a couple of seconds.  A couple seconds is a lifetime when you’re used to responsive sliders!

I didn’t want to buy a new graphics card for a 4-year old, slow computer so I decided to get a new computer.  It has some nice upgrades including an i7 hexa-core processor, a 256GB solid state drive, double the RAM of the old one–and of course an upgraded graphics card– among other features.  Now, using Lightroom, Photoshop, and their plugins is really quick compared to what it was before.  We’ll see how long this lasts!

Let’s get to the photo shoot at Ridgefield!   This one didn’t come out as high quality as I had hoped but the Peregrine Falcon was 200 feet away and I had some fog to cut through.  Regardless, it’s always a thrill to spot one of these beauties.

Canon 5DMark III, 1/500, f4, ISO 2000, 500mm.   (8:35 a.m.)   [The ‘real’ images can be viewed by clicking once on the thumbnails!  Thanks!]

 

_X5A9058-Edit20131209RNWR  Peregrine Falcon

 

And this 4-year old Bald Eagle was in a tree 280 feet away but I put the 1.4x on my 500 and tried a fairly high ISO shot.   Canon 5DMark III, 1/800, f5.6, ISO 3200, 700mm.    (8:59)

_X5A9201-Edit20131209RNWR  bald eagle

 

Out on the ice was this lone Nutria.    Canon 5DMark III, 1/800, f5.6, ISO 3200, 700mm.    (9:05)

_X5A9237-Edit20131209RNWR  nutria

 

This appears to be the same Bald Eagle as pictured above but he has moved to a different branch in the same tree.  Here I took a series of shots of the bird stretching its wings and taking flight.    Canon 5DMark III, 1/1250, f5.6, ISO 2000, 700mm.    (9:48)

_X5A9264-Edit20131209RNWR  bald eagle

 

 

_X5A9270-Edit20131209RNWR  bald eagle immature

 

 

_X5A9281-Edit20131209RNWR  bald eagle

 

 

_X5A9282-Edit20131209RNWR  bald eagle flight

 

 

_X5A9283-Edit20131209RNWR  bald eagle flight

 

 

_X5A9288-Edit20131209RNWR  bald eagle flight

 

This Northern Harrier on a post came out a little soft but it’s such a pretty bird I had to post it.    Canon 5DMark III, 1/1250, f5.6, ISO 2000, 700mm.    (10:46)

_X5A9311-Edit20131209RNWR  northern harrier

 

A Song Sparrow gives me an interesting pose!    Canon 5DMark III, 1/1250, f5.6, ISO 2000, 700mm.    (10:51)

_X5A9330-Edit20131209RNWR  song sparrow

 

Near the turn at marker #12, a Great Blue Heron has his eye on something.   Canon 5DMark III, 1/1250, f5.6, ISO 2000, 700mm.    (9:48)

_X5A9365-Edit20131209RNWR  great blue heron

 

And, out on the frozen lake an immature Bald Eagle cools off his feet.   The Coots don’t seem to be too alarmed by the eagle’s presence.     Canon 5DMark III, 1/1250, f4, ISO 1600, 500mm.    (12:05 p.m.)

_X5A9433-Edit20131209RNWR  bald eagle

 

A beautifully colored Song Sparrow poses on a wire.     Canon 5DMark III, 1/1250, f4, ISO 1600, 500mm.   (12:11)

_X5A9450-Edit20131209RNWR   song sparrow

 

Over by the Kiwa Trail entrance are these large rocks that have commemorative plaques attached to them.  Someone had placed birdseed of some kind on the tops of the rocks, I guess to attract the birds for a photo.  Or maybe they thought they were helping the birds by providing food during this cold time of year.  I’m no expert but from what I’ve read, visitors are not supposed to feed wildlife at the refuge, not to mention that the person had to get out of his/her vehicle to place the seed there–which is another violation of refuge rules.  And from a bird feeding standpoint, I thought that if you were going to provide feed for birds, it should be done continuously (especially in winter) and not just once now and then because they come to rely on the food source.  So while the person surely had good intentions here, it probably wasn’t the best idea for the welfare of the birds.  However, I got a ‘so-so’ shot of a Fox Sparrow, a bird I haven’t photographed for a couple years!   Canon 5DMark III, 1/1250, f4, ISO 1600, 500mm.    (12:38)

_X5A9457-Edit20131209RNWR  fox sparrow

 

Here are a couple of Belted Kingfisher shots.     Canon 5DMark III, 1/500, f4, ISO 1600, 500mm.   (1:25)

_X5A9556-Edit20131209RNWR  belted kingfisher

 

 

_X5A9560-Edit20131209RNWR  belted kingfisher

 

And in the woods I spot these two curious ‘coons inside of a hollowed out dead snag.   Canon 5DMark III, 1/500, f4, ISO 1600, 500mm.   (1:36)

_X5A9629-Edit20131209RNWR  raccoon

 

 

_X5A9639-Edit20131209RNWR  raccoons

 

That wraps it up for this session of The Blog.   Take care and we’ll see you next time!

 

Posted in

Hi, friends!  Today’s blog post covers pictures I took on Dec. 9, 2013.  It was cold, gray, and icy out.

One excuse for my slowness in getting this post done is because I’ve been setting up a new PC.  My old PC is 4 years old and lately has been running at a crawl.  I was getting real tired of how long it was taking for images to load in Lightroom.  Plus, all of a sudden, one of my most used Photoshop plugins, Nik Color Efex Pro 4, had slowed down to about a third of the speed it used to operate at.  I checked the GPU settings of the plugin and discovered that my graphics card no longer met the requirements for the program to use its processor.  So either Color Efex Pro changed or my graphics card had gone haywire.  You wouldn’t believe the torture involved with this program when GPU is not enabled.  The sliders don’t slide–they jump–and only after waiting a couple of seconds.  A couple seconds is a lifetime when you’re used to responsive sliders!

I didn’t want to buy a new graphics card for a 4-year old, slow computer so I decided to get a new computer.  It has some nice upgrades including an i7 hexa-core processor, a 256GB solid state drive, double the RAM of the old one–and of course an upgraded graphics card– among other features.  Now, using Lightroom, Photoshop, and their plugins is really quick compared to what it was before.  We’ll see how long this lasts!

Let’s get to the photo shoot at Ridgefield!   This one didn’t come out as high quality as I had hoped but the Peregrine Falcon was 200 feet away and I had some fog to cut through.  Regardless, it’s always a thrill to spot one of these beauties.

Canon 5DMark III, 1/500, f4, ISO 2000, 500mm.   (8:35 a.m.)   [The ‘real’ images can be viewed by clicking once on the thumbnails!  Thanks!]

 

_X5A9058-Edit20131209RNWR  Peregrine Falcon

 

And this 4-year old Bald Eagle was in a tree 280 feet away but I put the 1.4x on my 500 and tried a fairly high ISO shot.   Canon 5DMark III, 1/800, f5.6, ISO 3200, 700mm.    (8:59)

_X5A9201-Edit20131209RNWR  bald eagle

 

Out on the ice was this lone Nutria.    Canon 5DMark III, 1/800, f5.6, ISO 3200, 700mm.    (9:05)

_X5A9237-Edit20131209RNWR  nutria

 

This appears to be the same Bald Eagle as pictured above but he has moved to a different branch in the same tree.  Here I took a series of shots of the bird stretching its wings and taking flight.    Canon 5DMark III, 1/1250, f5.6, ISO 2000, 700mm.    (9:48)

_X5A9264-Edit20131209RNWR  bald eagle

 

 

_X5A9270-Edit20131209RNWR  bald eagle immature

 

 

_X5A9281-Edit20131209RNWR  bald eagle

 

 

_X5A9282-Edit20131209RNWR  bald eagle flight

 

 

_X5A9283-Edit20131209RNWR  bald eagle flight

 

 

_X5A9288-Edit20131209RNWR  bald eagle flight

 

This Northern Harrier on a post came out a little soft but it’s such a pretty bird I had to post it.    Canon 5DMark III, 1/1250, f5.6, ISO 2000, 700mm.    (10:46)

_X5A9311-Edit20131209RNWR  northern harrier

 

A Song Sparrow gives me an interesting pose!    Canon 5DMark III, 1/1250, f5.6, ISO 2000, 700mm.    (10:51)

_X5A9330-Edit20131209RNWR  song sparrow

 

Near the turn at marker #12, a Great Blue Heron has his eye on something.   Canon 5DMark III, 1/1250, f5.6, ISO 2000, 700mm.    (9:48)

_X5A9365-Edit20131209RNWR  great blue heron

 

And, out on the frozen lake an immature Bald Eagle cools off his feet.   The Coots don’t seem to be too alarmed by the eagle’s presence.     Canon 5DMark III, 1/1250, f4, ISO 1600, 500mm.    (12:05 p.m.)

_X5A9433-Edit20131209RNWR  bald eagle

 

A beautifully colored Song Sparrow poses on a wire.     Canon 5DMark III, 1/1250, f4, ISO 1600, 500mm.   (12:11)

_X5A9450-Edit20131209RNWR   song sparrow

 

Over by the Kiwa Trail entrance are these large rocks that have commemorative plaques attached to them.  Someone had placed birdseed of some kind on the tops of the rocks, I guess to attract the birds for a photo.  Or maybe they thought they were helping the birds by providing food during this cold time of year.  I’m no expert but from what I’ve read, visitors are not supposed to feed wildlife at the refuge, not to mention that the person had to get out of his/her vehicle to place the seed there–which is another violation of refuge rules.  And from a bird feeding standpoint, I thought that if you were going to provide feed for birds, it should be done continuously (especially in winter) and not just once now and then because they come to rely on the food source.  So while the person surely had good intentions here, it probably wasn’t the best idea for the welfare of the birds.  However, I got a ‘so-so’ shot of a Fox Sparrow, a bird I haven’t photographed for a couple years!   Canon 5DMark III, 1/1250, f4, ISO 1600, 500mm.    (12:38)

_X5A9457-Edit20131209RNWR  fox sparrow

 

Here are a couple of Belted Kingfisher shots.     Canon 5DMark III, 1/500, f4, ISO 1600, 500mm.   (1:25)

_X5A9556-Edit20131209RNWR  belted kingfisher

 

 

_X5A9560-Edit20131209RNWR  belted kingfisher

 

And in the woods I spot these two curious ‘coons inside of a hollowed out dead snag.   Canon 5DMark III, 1/500, f4, ISO 1600, 500mm.   (1:36)

_X5A9629-Edit20131209RNWR  raccoon

 

 

_X5A9639-Edit20131209RNWR  raccoons

 

That wraps it up for this session of The Blog.   Take care and we’ll see you next time!

 

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My Gear:

  • Canon EOS 5D Mark IV & Grip
  • Canon EOS 7D Mark II
  • Canon EF 500mm f4L IS II
  • Canon EF 24-105mm f4L
  • Canon EF 50mm f1.8
  • Canon 1.4X III Extender
  • Canon 2x III Extender
  • Canon 580EX Flash
  • Zoom H1 Recorder
  • Better Beamer
  • Manfrotto tripod/monopod
  • Manfrotto Gimbal Head
  • Sandisk Compact Flash Cards
  • The Molar Bean Bag by Vertex
  • Joby Gorillapod Focus & Ballhead
  • Canon EG200 Backpack
  • Storm Jacket Camera Cover
  • Kinesis Safari Sack
  • Original Bug Shirt Elite Edition

Software:

  • Adobe Photoshop CC
  • Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic
  • Nik Color EFEX Pro 4
  • Nik Sharpener 3
  • Nik Dfine 2.0
  • Nik Viveza 2
  • Nik HDR Efex Pro 2
  • Nik Silver Efex Pro 2
  • Nik Analog Efex Pro