The first time I ever went to Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, many years ago, I had the pleasure of witnessing the sunrise while crossing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. I say pleasure because I had not planned it right and didn't know how far I had to drive (no smart phone at the time, no google maps, and no proper prior planning) and while I was less than half way there I got to see the sunrise and realized I had blew it, and would be more than an hour "late" for sunrise...
Pretty much every visit since, over 50 easily in the last 9 or 10 years I've made it to Blackwater before sunrise, sometimes 45 minutes before... It is around a 100 miles to drive for me, and can take nearly 2 hours in the early morning. And it is totally worth it. Here are a couple sunrises from Blackwater that were awesome/epic/wow'd me, etc... Any many more here.
And finally this sunrise, from my second visit when I did actually make it in time for sunrise... ( Taken on December 16, 2006)
In March 2016 I think the weather wasn't supposed to be great and I slept in and then decided anyway to go east, and instead of getting up at 4am I got up at 5:30am or something. As I was driving I saw the amazing sunrise and these strange clouds and it was something to see. So for the first time, I stopped on the East side of the Bay Bridge at sunrise and went to the marina there.
Previously I'd shot the Snowy Owl that was there in the evening, while coming back from the Eastern Shore:
All that lead up to show off these two images I've shared so far from this spot... I shot a bunch, walked on the docks a bit, shot looking east, looking west, and took a few hundred photos. Then I continued east and hit a couple other spots without going to Blackwater.
Empty Docks
Sunrise @ Chesapeake Bay Bridge
Finally, here's a 'contact sheet' from the images I processed and rated from this day in March 2016. I've only posted the 2 above so far. There might be another couple to post from the sunrise timeframe... Later in the day the images were not unique, though it was fun to see the osprey early in the season the ducks as well.
If you're wondering about how I rate images, here it is:
1= come back and find this image and process it later.
2=used for an automated image/hdr creation, not editing by itself for single export
3=any edited image that is not rated higher
4=hdr images (TIF's then processed and exported), or regular images that are a "4". So just because an HDR is a 4 doesn't mean it is an image I really like.
5=highest rating, any image that I REALLY like...
Original content posted at http://natureandwildlifephotography.blogspot.com/
Nikographer.com / Jon
Read more On "Sunrise at Hemingways near the Chesapeake Bay Bridge March 2016"!
Tuesday, October 18, 2016
Sunrise at Hemingways near the Chesapeake Bay Bridge March 2016
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Great Horned Owls - GVP 22, 23
From http://natureandwildlifephotography.blogspot.com/2010/05/great-horned-owls-gvp-22-23.html
I have a new outlook on life and photography. Trying to manage people, contacts, friends and share "secret" info is too hard.
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Secrets are a commodity. Secrets are things no one can really keep. You tell me your golden nuggets and I will tell you mine, right? When I first got in to photography I wondered why it was hard to find detailed and exact information on nesting locations. But there's good reason, thoughtful people want to protect the animals and nests in question.
It is hard enough to be careful all by yourself. Then add the internet and if you broadcast (post publicly) the info there's no way to know who is reading it and what they might do. It is reasonable to assume people won't be outright destructive, but it is not really that reasonable to assume a stranger will know how to best act to do as little as possible to not impact a nest, egg(s), or chicks.
Three or 4 years ago I didn't know what I didn't know. I was just starting out, and I was hungry to find and see things and take photos.
Since then I've learned a lot, seen things, had my own little impacts and wondered how I could have done this or that better. And people have proven to not be able to keep a secret themselves, and I've seen people I would have judged worthy act in ways that don't seem right to me these days. (For example flushing a bird on purpose, to get a 'flight shot', seems rude and uninformed, and is not helpful to wildlife.)
One of the hard parts of this position I now find myself in is that I've learned so much from other photographers, and the internet in general. Open sharing has enabled a lot of this for me, to find things, pursue things, etc. 
The way I balance it now is that I share the location info for places that are well known, and publicized by me already, but I might not sharing the info in real time. That's not to say I will risk a spot, a nest, to conform to this. Most widely known spots don't have easily accessible eagle/owl/osprey nests.
For places I've not shared the location info before I maintain that, and I do my best to not draw attention to things like Owl nests. And when someone else shares secret location info on nesting birds with me I don't share it even when someone asks directly.
There's a lot of hard work that goes in to doing the right thing. "Just" wanting to get images of something is not an indication of anything but raw desire. And knowing someone first hand, having met in person (not just on the internet) provides some much needed context and insight in to who someone is...
All that said, I feel lucky to have been trusted with a spot a couple years ago. I added it to my list, and have gone a couple dozen times. I now have a real appreciation for the wildlife I want to photograph, more so that was possible when I started out.
I waited to post this Owlet. It has only recently fledged and made it past the 'perch close to the nest phase'. On a recent visit it saw me coming and took off after a minute or two. That's a success in my eyes - from egg to fledged and ready to move along as needed to keep safe. And now I can post these images confident that I did my part to appreciate and not hinder these owls' chances at success.
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