Wildlife Photography

There was a big turnout for Saturday night's fly-out as the two Eastern Screech-owls continued to put on a show on the West side of Central Park.

However fear and frepidation was among the diehard owl enthusiasts because the previous night one of the screech owls had swooped low across the drive and been struck by a car. Momentarily stunned, the owl shook off the glancing blow and flew off before anyone could render assistance.

Last night both owls seemed fine as they flew west from their nest tree followed by a flock of owl aficionados.

I met a very nice and knowledgeable young birder, John, who was there with his mother Helen. He is seen in the photo above standing next to the boy with the binoculars. John kindly lent his binoculars to his new friend so the friend could see the owls up close.

Posted by Cal Vornberger at 2/26/2006 09:00:00 AM | Permalink   

The pigeons at the Model Boat Pond in Central Park seemed to really enjoy Lincoln Canon equipment.

Whenever Pale Male and Lola took a break from copulation (they did it six times today) and/or Lincoln took a break from videotaping them, pigeons would land on his equipment. I guess they wanted to watch too.

Posted by Cal Vornberger at 2/25/2006 09:01:00 PM | Permalink   

In the winter I like to go to the Lake in Central Park on a cold, clear day and photograph Ring-billed Gulls in flight. I take some bread with me and a friend. The bread is for the gulls and the friend is to throw the bread up into the air so I have my hands free to take pictures.

I couldn't find anybody who wanted to come with me yesterday. Many of my friends had split for the long weekend and it was too cold for the rest of them. I went by myself and thought I could get some tourists to throw the bread up in the air for me but it was too cold even for them.

I was forced to throw the bread up in the air myself and then quickly swing my camera up and take a shot. I wasn't the best situation but I got a couple of decent shots.

I vary the camera settings to get different looks. This shot was madw with the camera in program mode. The flash freezes the body of the bird but the wings are moving too fast to be frozen at 1/200 so the have a motion blue. In other shots I used shutter priority to freeze the entire bird. I also used manual exposure.

Posted by Cal Vornberger at 2/20/2006 08:59:00 PM | Permalink   

Up at the north end yesterday I heard some crows making quite a racket. I occasionally see or hear two or three crows in this area but this was the largest number I have seen together in the north end of the park in a long time. I think West Nile has been particularly hard on the crow population in the area--at least that's my theory.

The subject of their consternation: A Red-tailed Hawk perched in a tree. The hawk could not care less about the demonstration going on above his head. Occasionally he'd glance up at his noisy neighbors but mostly he paid them no mind.

The tree's upper limbs could not support the weight of all the crows at once so every few minutes a couple of crows would take flight and two more would take their place. In all I counted fourteen crows.

Posted by Cal Vornberger at 2/16/2006 09:29:00 AM | Permalink   

The feisty little Red Squirrel continues to amuse and amaze visitors to the Locust Grove in Central Park. He works very hard at defending his territory, chasing away birds and other squirrels. This is the only Red Squirrel in Central Park and was probably introduce here. It's hard to imagine him making his way this far south on his own.

He has been adopted by a number of Central Park regulars who bring him nuts and other delicacies. After the recent snowfall I went into the park early one morning looking for him. I had never been in the Locust Grove at that time of day before and was shocked to find it has become a de facto dog run. There were at least 40 dogs running around in the area off their leashes.

There's only one Red Squirrel in the whole park. Couldn't we do a little something to protect him. Since the Parks Department is fond of putting up fences could they not be induced to fence off the Locust Grove and let this little guy have some breathing room?

He is very photogenic and I have taken quite a few pictures of him: http://www.calvorn.com/gallery/photo.php?photo=5935

Posted by Cal Vornberger at 2/15/2006 05:29:00 PM | Permalink