22 Mar 12. On the last trip two of us took up to Fir Island this year we had nothing but great luck and the Snow Geese really put on a show! The image for today is from that trip and shows the birds making a 180 degree reversal of their flight direction which they did several times before returning to graze. I took my first videos of them so doing on that trip and I will be posting one of them on the blog as it is too large to show via this mailing. It is something you really have to see in person to truly appreciate, but the video, poor as it is, will at least give you a better idea than this still image could ever hope to do. Nevertheless, the still will give you a bit of an idea as to how it looks as they reverse direction and the resulting flashing of black and white like two transparent checker boards being waved across each other. The resultant flashing of light would be enough to confuse most anything trying to single out an individual bird. On this particular flight the birds formed up much like a swarm of bees with the flight having a very pointy front and broad back with the front, as it reversed direction, threading its way through the vast assembly of following birds, with none of them apparently hitting one another, something that simply amazes me each and every time I observe it! A great show just as long as you are not directly beneath it. When that's the case, hope for an umbrella or something similar, to shield you from the droppings. We were close enough to the flock of approximately 10,000 birds on one occasion, about 3 feet away actually, when the incessant loud squawking suddenly stopped. ALL the birds at once, in less than a half second, went totally silent, remained that way for perhaps 2 seconds, then they all launched as a group. The noise of the launch was almost deafening and one of the most spectacular things I've ever been privileged to experience. ISO 200; 1/500 sec @ f / 9.
23 Mar 12 . Returning home from working on the house a couple weeks ago I noticed a couple with their dog standing as close to the stern as allowed looking back at the Olympic Mountains and in the general direction of the Kitsap Peninsula as if trying to hold on to a particular experience or memory. That offered an opportunity for several different approaches in creating the image, and I elected to go with an almost total silhouette, but not totally black. IF you concentrate hard enough you can see the faces of all three, but I had to manipulate the original RAW image somewhat to make that happen. At first glance you won't see their faces, which is exactly what I wanted, but they are there. In retrospect I probably should have gotten a model release, but at the time of the shoot I didn't realize I had as much detail available as I did. That said, I find it highly unlikely that anyone of this mailing list would recognize the couple and/or their dog. Even exposing the couple to the degree that they went almost solid black, I still had too much light falling on the water which had to be handled carefully as a layer in Photoshop and selectively darkened. As the area was quite blown out in the original, getting the water to blend in took a bit of effort, but eventually I got it sufficiently under control that I think it looks O.K. for sharing.with you. ISO 200; 1/2000 sec @ f /10.
