Short, but sweet.

In my search to locate as many nests as possible I have neglected the nest that is already in action. Saturday I arrived real early just as the sun was coming up and the rain was coming down. It was quiet as you hear the grackles and red winged black birds calls piercing the rain drops cries for attention. It was a lazy morning for those who were already nesting and active for those still are seeking a mate.

The male was resting in the water beside the female while the female remained in the nest. No courtship displays or honking to others for them. She sat checking her feathers and doing her best to keep her 7-8 eggs covered.

A bit shy at first.

She started to take note as I settled in for the 2+ hours I would spend hanging out in the mud/rain to see if she will share with me one of the many natural wonders of life.

I’m not sure if it’s hard to make out, but there is a red winged black bird (one of many) calling at and around the mute swan nest. So much so that when one boldly flew right near the nest it got her attention. You can see him in the lower left corner sticking out right above the log that crossed the frame.

This was an opportunity I haven’t ever been privileged to before. My eyes just lit up for a moment before I went to work capturing the moment. I was just amazed at how they are so dedicated to their young sitting for hours on end tending to these future yolk/embryos of life.  She did some minor adjustment and then resettled her self after about 15-20seconds. Not a lot of time to work, but worth all the wait.

Trying to set up for different angles after the first peek I went vertical. Went in for the more intimate approach here by just zooming in with my 80-400. I love the accents of green. Green always seems to tie the photographs together. Natures’ universal color. The reeds you see here and in the other photographs was something I couldn’t avoid. I wasn’t going to pluck or bend a branch to get the shot. These birds or other animals might have chosen this spot just for those reeds. Might have sounded crazy, but it is true that it could happen. If I were to alter their environment in anyway they may abandon their nest and leave the nest untended leading to imminent death for their offspring. Something we all definitely do not want.

An image more for some comical relief. Feel free to click on the image for a better view. She apparently doesn’t like the rain very much and every few minutes would shake her head to clear herself of the droplets. Too dizzy for me for that kind of pay off.

An interesting image, but not a real looker at first. This great egret would poke around the pond and would never seem to land near me. Well in the pooring rain, awful light and behind a ton of thickets and reeds he landed 10ft from me! Ain’t it always the way it happens? So as he was taking off and taking advantage of the slow shutter speeds I panned and kept on firing coming up with the image above. After a little bit of light tweaking…

…I came up with this. What I did with it can be done in any program that has the ability to access the levels for the image. I brought in the black point slider further into the histogram making many areas rich and dark as well as bringing the highlights slider just enough to avoid blowing too many highlights. Well, there you have it.

One other thing I did while shooting was use the cloudy white balance setting. Knowing it was raining the the day was gonna stay that way I left it in cloudy. What auto white balance will do on an overcast day is just nasty looking. I prefer to do what I can in camera and don’t like to tweak much on the computer. You could use shade mode, but I fell the whites go too warm and aren’t natural. Curious? Well go on out and give it a try!