Red-breasted Merganser

After “getting into” ducks a few years ago, the Red-breasted Merganser became an instant favorite with its spindly features, shaggy crest, and long thin bill. Somehow it seemed almost exotic; this is not a common bird to me. This image is from my first close encounter with a group of Red-breasted Mergansers from the edge of a pond under my gillie blanket. I was thrilled when I saw them heading my way in the golden hour light. I fired off as many shots as I could as they passed my position, and I struggled to keep track of them as they dove and emerged from the water. This was my favorite frame with great sharpness, eye contact, and another hen perfectly positioned to create a halo effect behind the subject’s head.

Tried and True Technique

Black-necked Stilt *Himantopus mexicanus,* Salt Lake County, Utah

My favorite avian images from the past three years have all been captured in the same way. I go to a place where I’ve seen birds before, a place where I know birds like to be; typically I set up at the edge of a pond where I’ve observed activity previously.

I plan on being in position an hour to an hour and a half before I want to take pictures. From my experience this is how long it takes waterfowl and wading birds to come around once I’ve intruded into their space. If I’m targeting the sunset hour, I want to take pictures in the light from one hour to thirty minutes before sunset, so I need to be in position at least an hour before that.

I’ll lay my closed cell foam pad down at the very edge of the pond, lie flat on my belly and pull a gillie blanket over me entirely, with just the barrel of my Nikon 500mm PF lens poking out. I just rest the camera and lens right on the ground; one reason I use a neoprene LensCoat.

Key to this set-up for me is a right angle finder. It allows me to stay in this position for hours without wrenching my neck to look through the lens. The more comfortable I am the less I squirm around which leads to more close approaches by my avian friends.

I’ll usually shoot wide open at f5.6 for velvety soft backgrounds. I set my shutter speed to 1/1000 of a second and my ISO to auto. This technique has yielded great results for me, it’s gotten birds to come much closer to me than I could ever approach them. This Black-necked Stilt came so close I could no longer fit its body in the frame, a few inches more and it’s beyond the close focus of my lens.

A Matter of Perspective

Brewer’s Blackbird *Euphagus cyanocephalus*, Salt Lake City, Utah

I wasn’t targeting Brewer’s Blackbirds when I made this image, but it quickly became a favorite because of that stare. Something about the pale iris of the male Brewer’s Blackbird that just makes their gaze intense. What really makes this image sing, what makes the isolation of that gaze possible is the perspective. Bird’s eye level perspective; no room for a tripod, camera and lens resting on the ground. Besides the obvious engagement with the bird, this perspective allows the plane of focus to be perpendicular to the ground, which means the background is distant and rendered extremely soft with a wide aperture.

Two's Company

American Avocets (Recurvirostra americana); Salt Lake City, Utah

Three’s a crowd…I know nothing of the relationship of this dyad, but there’s no mistaking the synergy in their actions. At times their movement was completely synchronous. It was fun for me to spend some time with these two, one early morning last October, at close range from my blind at the water’s edge. I made many portraits of these two birds, individually and together. The pair together is a little more challenging to pull off, but when the spacing is right, some of that synergy comes through in the portrait.

Infinite Inspiration

Purplish Copper (Lycaena helloides) — Purplish Copper (*Lycaena helloides*)

Wow. I can’t believe I managed to go an entire year without posting a single blog entry. In my mind I posted many. I may have had (have) some form of writers block, but it isn’t from a lack of inspiration to photograph the natural world. I may not have any blog posts to my credit in 2019, but I did make a number of memorable images. More importantly, I went deeper into some of my new favorite subjects: birds, butterflies, and dragonflies.

Spotted Sandpiper (Actitis macularia) — Spotted Sandpiper (*Actitis macularia)*

2019 was the first year I saw the difference between an eight spotted skimmer and a twelve spotted skimmer. It was actually the first year I positively identified any species of dragonfly. It was also the first year I realized there was this adorable little sandpiper high in Utah’s mountains in summer, working the edges of subalpine streams and ponds. It was also the first year I spotted the snaky orange line on the hindwing of the Purplish Copper.

In order to identify the creatures I’ve captured digitally, I’ve found a few websites to be invaluable. Utah Birds is a great website with tons of photos and info on the birds of Utah and the best birding locations in the state. Butterflies and Moths of North America is my go to site for identifying butterflies, and Odonata Central has helped me overcome my trepidation trying to differentiate species of dragonfly.

One of my favorite features of all of these sites is the ability to generate a checklist at the county level. It blew me away to learn the checklists for Salt Lake County include 346 species of birds, 122 species of butterflies, and 49 distinct species of damselflies and dragonflies.

Photographing all the species from any one of those lists would be an immense challenge. The numbers made me think, the variety of subjects right in my backyard could easily provide a lifetime of photographic inspiration. I’ll try harder this year to share some of those inspirations. Thanks for visiting jeffbeckphoto.com.

Winter Birds of Red Butte Garden

Black-billed Magpie (Pica hudsonia) — Black-billed Magpie (*Pica hudsonia*)

Cedar Waxwing (Bombycilla cedrorum) — Cedar Waxwing (*Bombycilla cedrorum*)

Last Sunday while at the Red Butte Garden annual holiday open house, I abandoned my booth for a couple of forays out into the wintery garden in hopes of seeing and photographing birds. To my surprise I saw nine different species of birds within about twenty minutes.

I'm guessing that the gardens create a rare concentration of winter food, based on my experience that bird sightings in the Salt Lake City foothills are infrequent this time of year. At least, I haven't seen that kind of variety of birds in one place at one time in any of the other locations I've gone looking this time of year.