Iridescent northern shoveler, Radio Road Ponds

Northern shovelers are beautiful in any light, but especially when you catch the right reflection off of their iridescent feathers. The right mix of overcast light and head angle really helped to show off the colors of this drake.

Semipalmated plover, Point Reyes National Seashore

When I have a cooperative subject, I try to remember to turn the camera vertical to get some variation into my images for the day. While shorebirds like sandpipers and plovers aren't always the best shape for taking advantage of a vertical frame due to their low height and stocky stature, it's still worth taking a look. In this situation, the apparent shallow dof I could get by using the sand in the foreground and the long distance to the dunes in the background helped to make an isolated environment for the plover, and it worked much better in the vertical for this purpose.



While I enjoy a good photograph of a bird tucked into its feathers, sometimes they can lack a little something when an eye isn't clearly visible. The shot above is from just after it pulled out of its resting position to take a look around, and the frame below is from a bit earlier while I was watching this group of birds. The sun was bouncing behind clouds, giving a good mix of diffuse overcast light with a touch of sunshine every now and then too.



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See more of the semiplamated plovers and other species in my Plovers Gallery.

Black-bellied plover & shadow, Pillar Point Harbor

Two more shots of this very friendly black-bellied plover at Pillar Point Harbor on Half Moon Bay. As the sun was dropping lower in the sky, the shadows stretched longer, and really elongated the look of the lengthy legs of this shorebird.



Submitted to World Bird Wednesday -- Click the link to check out this weeks posts!

Stepping sanderling, Point Reyes National Seashore

A sanderling walking the water's edge on Limantour Beach, Point Reyes National Seashore.

The owl that wasn't, Berkeley Marina

This is a shot about a shot that I had in my head but was never able to get. After finding this owl in a burrow that was an ideal location for a nice ground level image right near the fence to keep the dogs out, I had high hopes to come home with an image of this bird standing tall by its burrow. I returned to the park many times this spring, but each time the owl stayed tucked away inside. On my last trip in March, I finally saw it half-out of the hole -- but by then the grass was too tall for the shot I wanted anyway. Such is the joy of wildlife photography though. Not that there's joy in not getting a shot you want, but there is much joy when the stars align and the animals actually do what you were envisioning in perfect light. You never know when it will happen -- so the more potential images you have stored in your head, the better ;-)