Black Skimmers in NY and NJ - 2016

Black Skimmers in NY and NJ 2016.


I enjoy watching and shooting the Black Skimmers.  They are usually a mix of adults and immature birds - when I see them both in New York and New Jersey.

They will let me get pretty close, but often will also seemingly fly off for no reason.  But usually it is a jogger, a person with a dog, or a predator flying by (like a peregrine, which I have seen buzz them at Cape May).

Some times when they take off they will fly around and fly off and land a half mile or more down the beach.  Other times they will land right near where they took off from.  For this reason I usually give it a few minutes and stay where I was shooting from without moving or getting up.  This has occasionally worked, and they have landed right back in front of me.

I find that cool.  And even cooler is when the birds approach me.  Sometimes this has been due to other people approaching them from another side/area, and it has also been when they have the water/surf on one side of them and me on the other.  When they run away from the surf and towards me, to a safer location, I find that to be a sign that I am there and not bothering them and they are comfortable with me shooting them.

It is also interesting to see them as they move this way and that way, and how often there will be an immature bird that must be tired and it is either sleeping and not moving or it is just slower to respond and follow the movements of the flock.

The really do behave like one bird, all in sync, when it comes to responding to perceived danger.  If they think there's something bad about to happen they will all fly off together in a moment.  Only once or twice have I seen them leave a bird behind, and that bird has always been injured or weak.  To survive they've got to be able to go with the flock when danger approaches...

 D500 w/ 600mm f/11 1/1600th
Nickerson Beach, NY


D810 600mm f/5.6 1/500th
Cape May, NJ



 D500 w/ 600mm f/5.6 1/800th
 Cape May, NJ


Happy New Year.

-Jon



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Black Skimmers in NY and NJ - 2016

Catching up in late 2016 - 3 photos from 3 locations

I was posting regularly and then well I wasn't.  I did it for a bit, but then fell back in to my old ways and got busy doing other things (but still shooting mostly).

As 2016 is winding down, I was thinking about using December to catch up and post a new photo a day, but that didn't happen.

So today I just posted 3 images, each from a different day and locations.

(In chronological order)

The first images is of some oystercatchers, an adult and chick, feeding in New York, in late August.  I grew up just down the beach, literally, from this spot where a bunch of different birds nest (common terns, black skimmers, oystercatchers, plovers, etc).

The oystercatchers can be a little hard to shoot if they get weary and react to being watched.  This day I tried to notice when they were watching me and then looked away and didn't eyeball them.  It mostly worked and I shot them from a fairly close distance as they went around hunting and feeding their chicks.  There were a handful of adults and chicks.




Next I shared an image of a Green Heron from Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens in Washington DC.

This year I went as many times as I had been in all previous years combined. Earlier in the year I photographed the lotus flowers a bunch, experimenting and doing some macro stuff in the last few visits.  By September when I got the heron the flowers were past, except for a few lotus, and for some water lilies in the back ponds.  Most of the busy summer traffic is over and I saw just a few other people there this morning.  Everyone comes for the lotus - so by September it is much more peaceful and low key.  And even if your thing is flowers there were enough water lilies to make it good.



Finally from later in September, I shot some stars at Cape May along the beach.

I've only experimented with star photography a little bit, I think all this year.  It can be a challenge.  Getting good focus is hard because it is night out and the stars are small and far away - I used manual focus on nearby lights and tried to chimp and adjust but I need to work on the night focus techniques...  With the cold nights, it can be hard to keep the lens from fogging up (but I plan to use hand-warmers to keep the lens warmer than the ambient air temp and some special lens coating/spray to prevent fogging next time).  I also wonder if shooting from sand (ie not solid ground) contributed to softer images.



2016 has been an amazing year, I've seen and done a lot.  I've changed a lot of things I needed to change (in 2015 and 2016).  I've been meditating for a little more than a year, and chalk up a lot of the movement in my life to that slowing down practice.

-Jon

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Catching up in late 2016 - 3 photos from 3 locations