There is a chance that I will be able to get on site and create a series of panoramas of the ship and the excavation but we aren’t sure yet.  Details are still being worked out so I am just headed down prepared to either shoot or work from the hotel.  Whatever happens, We will be in the city for at least the next week or so.  I’ll post some more details about the project sometime this coming week once I know more myself.

If you are in the City and want to meet up for coffee or a drink, shoot me an email or leave a comment here.  Hope everyone has a great week!

Ovenbird (Seiurus aurocapillus) - Genung Preserve, Freeville, NY

Having grown up in central Florida and lived in Texas for the last few years, I am used to seeing warblers during migration, not singing on territory like they do here.  This means I have quite a steep learning curve trying to learn the songs of local birds. I am making rapid progress, but there is an incredible amount to learn!

Just a few weeks ago, I was birding at Sapsucker Woods and could hear a very loud song a little ways off in the forest.  I searched and searched and searched and could not find the bird.  Not a chance.  I knew I had heard it before, but I had absolutely no idea what it was.  Finally, since it was starting to get dark, I gave up and headed back home.

Singing Ovenbird (Seiurus aurocapillus) - Genung Preserve, Freeville, NY

The next morning, I was birding at Genung Preserve very close to my house.  As soon as I stepped out of my car, I heard the song again, and this time it was very close.  After a minute or so of searching I finally tracked down an Ovenbird, singing from a fairly low branch in a conifer.  I tried for a few minutes to get some photos, but the light just wasn’t there, as the sun hadn’t cleared the horizon yet.  Since he was clearly on territory, I decided to go find some Blue-winged Warblers and return later in the morning.

After having a successful shoot with a nice male Blue-winged Warbler, I returned to the Ovenbird and followed him around for a while.  I took tons and tons of photographs, but the low and dappled light made it extremely difficult.  Out of all my frames, I ended up with a single frame (top image) that I was fairly pleased with and a couple more that are ok, but nothing spectacular.  Since this bird is right around the corner from my house, I’m going to have to return to see if I can do better!

For those of you who don’t know, my wife is currently a PhD student at Cornell University, so our daily life is heavily influenced by her school schedule.  Add to that my involvement as an instructor at Cornell Outdoor Education, and the fact that we live in Ithaca, a city with two colleges and a huge number of college students and I really do live on a semester schedule despite not being a student.

There are many advantages of the semester schedule that I really miss.  First off, I miss the fact that at the beginning of every semester you get to start from scratch with new classes, new professors, and new things to learn.  Whatever happened last semester doesn’t matter now.  You get a clean slate.  It gives you a chance to try different things and if the don’t work, it isn’t all that costly.  It sort of is like having a chance to make New Year’s Resolutions twice each year.  It’s pretty great.

However, the one thing that I have embraced now that I am not completely tied to that schedule is the ability to work on long-term projects.  With semesters, since everything has to start and finish during that 4 or 5 months, research projects tend to be short and it’s hard to get really in depth, particularly if fieldwork is involved.  I feel like nearly every lab I ever did in science classes were precursory looks at field techniques, a small sampling of what is possible, and could be much more interesting only if we had more time.

Now that I am out of school, I am able to embrace long projects.  I’ve been working on Canopy in the Clouds for nearly three years now.  I keep returning to the Everglades (a project that started on the semester schedule).  I spent a year in Australia.  I have several major projects in mind for the near and not so near future that all are more than a few weeks or months.  Once you get out of that semester schedule and “into the real world,” as we said as college students, opportunities open to create major and lasting projects, not just a sampling of technique.

In reality, I live in the best of both worlds.  On the one hand, I get to experience the renewal of a fresh start each semester.  I still think of the year divided into three periods, the fall semester (September through December), the spring semester (January through May), and summer (June through August).  These periods can help me to get short-term projects started and finished; yet I am also not completely tethered to these periods so that I can embrace long-term projects when opportunities arise.

It is a wonderful lifestyle, except that it means that the last few weeks of each semester become hectic and crazy and the blog falls silent for a week.  I’m back this week and look forward to sharing some of the things I’ve been doing.

Yellow Warbler (Dendroica petechia) - Foster Pond, Finger Lakes National Forest, New York

Yesterday morning, I spent a couple hours with another local photographer Raghu Ramanujan at Foster Pond in the Finger Lakes National Forest.  It was a spectacularly beautiful morning and the woods were alive with warblers feeding and singing.  Despite the huge amount of activity, we struggled to create photographs because we couldn’t really get close to many of the birds.

Rather than get frustrated with myself, I decided to switch gears a bit and focus on creating images of the warblers in their habitat rather than close up portraits.  While I love the challenge of getting close to warblers and other small songbirds, creating environmental portraits can be even more of a challenge and extremely rewarding when one works.

Song Sparrow (Melospiza melodia) - Foster Pond, Finger Lakes National Forest, New York

With environmental portraits, there is a lot more to consider when creating the composition.  Take the above image of a Song Sparrow for example.  Not only do we have to consider the actual bird as part of the composition, we also have to consider all of the other vegetation on the right side of the image.  These additional elements can create for a busy and distracting image unless managed carefully.  Additionally, when we make the bird smaller in the frame, it commands less of a presence in the image so placement in the frame is even more important.

Blue-winged Warbler (Vermivora pinus) - Foster Pond, Finger Lakes National Forest, New York

Whenever I am creating an environmental portrait, it is my goal to use the included foliage to inform the viewer.  For example, in all of these images, the foliage is either in the process of budding out or in bloom.  This clearly indicates the images were taken in early spring.  Additionally, some of the birds are singing which also suggests a bird on territory.  By including all of these different elements, we can start to tell stories through our images, a task much more difficult with simply a single bird sitting on a stick on a solid colored background.

Male Blue-winged Warbler (Vermivora pinus) - Genung Nature Preserve, Freeville, NY

As a birder, one of my nemesis birds for a long time was the Blue-winged Warbler.  I have seen all but one or two species of wood warblers that are found in the eastern half of the country but for a long time, Blue-wingeds avoided me.  I finally got my eyes on one at High Island, Texas two years ago but it was just a single bird.  When we finally decided to move to Ithaca, I knew that this would give me a chance to not only see Blue-wingeds, but hopefully get some photos as well.

I had been trying to get out and photograph this week but the weather didn’t really want to cooperate in the mornings.  Finally, yesterday, we had a sunny morning and I decided to go check out a very small preserve just around the corner from my apartment, the Genung Nature Preserve, owned by the Finger Lakes Land Trust.  Tuesday evening, someone had reported having heard Blue-winged Warblers at the preserve so I hoped there would be at least one bird on territory.

Before leaving the apartment this morning, I was sure to review the buzzy, almost insect like song of the Blue-winged Warbler.  Knowing the song makes locating the birds infinitely easier.  I arrived at the park, stepped out of my car and was immediately greeted by a Blue-winged Warbler singing about 50 yards away.  Easy enough, I got my gear set up and headed down the trail to find the bird.

Male Blue-winged Warbler (Vermivora pinus) - Genung Nature Preserve, Freeville, NY

Fortunately for us photographers, Blue-wingeds tend to like low brushy habitat rather than really tall canopy trees like so many other warblers do.  Sure enough, the Blue-winged Warbler was singing fairly low down and I was able to spend some significant time photographing the beautiful male.

Male Blue-winged Warbler (Vermivora pinus) - Genung Nature Preserve, Freeville, NY

Once I was satisfied with the images of this bird, I went for a walk through the rest of the preserve.  The forest was alive with bird song including several new birds for the year for me such as the Scarlet Tanager, Eastern Towhee, and Common Yellowthroat.  I also had an Ovenbird that was singing its heart out right by the parking lot.  Maybe I’ll share those photographs with you tomorrow.

Dark-eyed Junco (Junco hyemalis) - Summerhill State Forest, New York

Dark-eyed Junco (Junco hyemalis) - Summerhill State Forest, New York

Like yesterday’s Song Sparrows, many Dark-eyed Juncos hang around the area over the winter and are commonly seen at feeders.  They also set up territories and begin singing early in the spring.  They breed in forests dominated by conifers but are also seen in mixed woods.  I have had them singing in my back yard in the past few weeks, but I was able to photograph this male singing in Summerhill State Forest last week.  I have enjoyed photographing these sparrows both this spring and last fall because we don’t get them in central Florida.

Song Sparrow (Melospiza melodia) - Summerhill State Forest

Talking about Song Sparrows as a migrant might not be totally fair as some birds stay over the winter and some migrate south.  However, regardless of whether they are returning migrants or just over wintering birds, Song Sparrows are one of the first birds of spring to start singing.  Here in Central New York they are everywhere and their song is ubiquitous.  It seems that nearly every time I put my binoculars on a sparrow, it turns out to be a Song Sparrow.

Song Sparrow (Melospiza melodia) - Summerhill State Forest

As far as images go, I have some better images in my catalog from a few years back, but I am posting images taken last week so we’ll have to make do with this one.  Trees and underbrush is starting to really leaf out now so getting more spring like images should be easier next week.

Prairie Warbler (Dendroica discolor) - Falmouth, Maine

It’s getting to be spring and the earliest migrants have arrived.  In only about 2 weeks we should see the first arrival of warblers and the rest of the songbirds.  With all this reviewing of goals this week, I’ve been thinking a lot about the spring and what I would like to accomplish.  Once again, I thought I would take a few minutes to share what I have been thinking about.

I have a lot going on in the next few months so while I am making these goals fairly ambitious chances are, like my winter goals, I won’t be able to cover all of them.  So what is already on my plate?  Well, for starters I will be an instructor for two courses through the Cornell Outdoor Education program, Backcountry Photography on Saturdays and Tree Climbing on Sundays.  That means every weekend I’ll be outside, but it doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll be out to capture photographs (especially with the treeclimbing).  These courses start in about two weeks and will run through the middle of May.

I also have two new business ventures that both will require an enormous amount of time in front of a computer, but I still plan to get out and photograph spring migrants at least a couple times a week for a few hours in the morning.

Warblers – I have a special place in my heart for these little feathered gems and I plan to dedicate some serious time photographing this family this spring and summer.  I have images on about a dozen species currently but I’d love to expand my files on those species and begin to add additional species.  Special targets will include Cerulean Warbler, Mourning Warbler, and both Blue-winged and Golden-winged Warblers.  As spring becomes summer, I’d like to capture more natural history style photographs rather than just simple portraits.  All of these are pretty tough birds so it should be a great challenge.

Climbing – I have this crazy idea that getting into a nice tree canopy during migration might just provide some great birding opportunities and possibly some good photography opportunities.  I haven’t picked a location yet, but I have a few in mind.  Since I’ll be climbing regularly in April/May I don’t think it will be a problem to find a good spot!

Landscapes – In conjunction with the backcountry photography course, I’m looking forward to also doing a little more landscape work.  This is a beautiful region and I can’t wait to see everything start budding out.  We are supposed to get into the 80s for at least two days this weekend so maybe that will get the sap flowing!

These goals are a little bit different than my winter goals and while ambitious, especially the Warblers, I look forward to the challenge and hopefully some great images will result!