Tag Archives: wildlife

The Goldfinches are Back

It’s just turned February and the feeders are under attack by a dozen or so Goldfinches, which we haven’t seen in months. They are pretty good at hovering while they wait their turn at a feeding post while others wait in the nearby trees. I caught this guy waiting on a branch in a brisk breeze.
I had to crop the picture pretty dramatically to get this framing and pump up the vibrance and reduce the noise a bit to reach this final.

Goldfinch on a Limb
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Camera: Nikon D7100 • ISO 640 • 300mm • -0.67 ev • f/5.6 • 1/640

Resting Fawn

This fawn was resting near her mama on the path down to our lake dock.  We see them around most of the year as the graze around and then find a spot to lay and digest.  The horse pasture is one of their favorite grazing areas

I capture this image from our dinning room window with a 300mm Nikon lens.

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Camera: Nikon D7100 • ISO 6400 • 300mm • -0.67 ev • f/5.6 • 1/500

Cormorants, Basking in the Sunset

We spent part of the afternoon walking around Copperhead Island at Lake Wylie.  The first cove we encountered held about a dozen resting cormorants and a whole hill of Coots (not shown here).

This photo was taken through the trees and there were a number of out-of-focus branches and twigs in the way.  I used the gradient tool in Adobe Lightroom to brighten up the right side of the photo, which erased the twits and branches.

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Caught!

The baffle is the stopper. If the squirrel enters the baffle, looking for food, it gets lost and finally comes out the bottom. There is part of me that is eager for this pest to experience the terror of the dark. But they’re still a cute creature.

This photo is a result of some HDR post processing for better color and texture. It’s rare to find wildlife so willing to stand still for it.

Unwitting Squirrel Entering the Tube
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Four Deer Running for It

These deer waited in some trees to the right until they apparent found the appropriate moment to dash across the street in front of us.

This photo took a great deal of post processing, including an initial HDR treatment with PhotoMatix Pro. Then I divided the photo into layers in Photoshop, masked out the animals, and then applied a motion blur on the background to convey more of a sense of motion and speed.

Four Deer
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