Tag: Maine

Yellow-Crowned Night Heron…by Brad Marks

I feel like our haven of trail witches have put a curse on me. First I tweak my ankle during the build up to the haunted trail, then the race beats me down something good only to make it through to put the cherry on top the misery sundae by breaking a toe (on the good foot) in a manner so unmanly I am not about to reveal it. I’ve learned a couple of surprising things since then. One is the revelation that trimming trees for four days is probably not the brightest choice all hobbled up – something tells me some of our readers probably already knew or could foresee that bit of knowledge. The other surprise comes courtesy of Brad who is bringing us one of his adventures from his recent New England trip. In fact, my new birding tidbit comes courtesy of that little space between the third and fourth word in his title. I was about to insert the expected “-” when I decided to dig into this a bit more. Brad is absolutely correct, as of July 2024, the American Birding Association has removed the second dash between Night and Heron. You can read more about that change and several other updates in their 2024 supplement (link here). Note, once again, they FAILED to rename the Ring-Necked Duck arrrgghhh! Enough of my whining, it’s time for Brad to introduce us to one of his newest lifers.

Take it away Brad…

During a recent photo assignment to New England, Jan and I were enjoying the low tide near Boothbay Harbor in Maine.  We traveled to Maine with our friends from the Boston area.  We also had the bonus of having Allyson join us for an abbreviated weekend.

This also happened to be our first photo outing with our brand “new” D500 camera bodies, well, at least new to us.  The old trusty D300’s had served us well, but had begun showing age-related faults (over 200,000 clicks on both of them) during our Alaska assignment.  We had a mere six days after Alaska to get “new” cameras before the New England trip.  I used all of my trusted camera sites ordering bodies, batteries, and chargers.  I’m still working on the Wildlife Intrigued expense report.  Everything arrived in time, some only just, for the trip to Boston and Maine.

Our first morning in Maine, low tide was at 9am.  After breakfast, we all rushed down to the waterline to see what we would see at low tide.  The rented house where we stayed, was about 100 feet from the water.  The tide was nearly at the lowest point of the morning, down over 8 feet from high tide the night before.  Drying seaweed was all over the newly exposed rocks and made walking slippery.  Jan was photographing a Great Blue Heron in the shadows next to our dock.  Allyson was wading in the cold Atlantic water looking for crabs, lobsters, and snails.  I was watching the sunlit part of the terrain opposite our rocky point, when something caught my eye.

Yellow-Crowned Night Heron by Brad Marks

Did you spot today’s featured feathered friend? Hit the jump to read more about this well camouflaged discovery.

Continue reading Yellow-Crowned Night Heron…by Brad Marks

Phoadtography Gallery: Maine Trip 2010 Pt 2

Time to close out this year’s posts.  With only the remaining year end summary left, this post essentially puts the finishing touches on the 2010 blog entries.  As with Part I of this Phoadtography Gallery this set comes with a healthy dose of photos as well.  The good news is this closes out all the road shots from the Maine trip allowing me to start fresh with the new year.  Unfortunately, I was unable to get through all the Maine photos (off the road) and now even farther behind with the recent Vegas/Mt Zion trip we took a month ago.   Oh well, plenty in the hopper for 2011 (should I choose to continue this activity for next year). Time’s a wasting, let’s get to the shots.

This should not be a surprise, but I have an affinity towards bridges.  The exact reason is difficult to tell since it is difficult to pin down exactly when I started admiring these structures.  Having built one now, this appreciation has definitely increased.  If pressed, I’d have to say that the fusion of artistic characteristics and functional purpose entwined in physics and math is the compelling factor.  This might be similar to some people’s fascination with sundials seeing how ornate and complex those functional timepieces can be.  This particular bridge has all of the classic features of bridge with its arches, triangles (notice the vertical beams are not straight up and down) and the cross hatch underneath to keep it rigid.  With the height of this beast, there are probably large ships traversing this waterway.

This particular bridge still confuses me in the sense I am unable to figure out the functional component.  It appears to go absolutely nowhere and the railing on the end suggests there was no plan for it to go anywhere.  The metal structure towards the middle of the bridge is interesting as well.  First thought was it rotated in some manner and connected up to another span allowing for easy traversal of the waterway.  This sounds good in theory, but there did not seem to be a pivot point or any span to hook up to.  It is a mystery and if anyone is near 194.75 and knows anything about this, please leave a comment.

Hit the jump to see the rest of the Phoadtography gallery.

Continue reading Phoadtography Gallery: Maine Trip 2010 Pt 2

Time for a New Umbrella B*tch

əm-ˈbre-lə ˈbich:  The individual responsible for holding a weather protection device over another more skilled photographer while he or she composes the perfect shot while out on a shoot in non-favorable conditions.  This also includes all packing and hauling in/out of equipment.  Sometimes referred to as a flunkie, lackey or assistant.

I should probably give some background to this.  There are times when Linda and I are out in the wild taking some snaps with the trusty Nikons.  Unfortunately, there are times when the weather doesn’t exactly cooperate as planned and we find ourselves in need of shelter.  Of course, we always claim this makes for better lighting and mood in our products, but generally that is just a convenient excuse to justify why two grown people are standing out in pouring rain taking pictures of god knows what.  We were actually out in Maine recently (Acadia to be specific) when this exact situation came up.  It was raining off and on most of the time there so we broke down and headed out with all our equipment in tow.  We found a pretty cool rock beach and decided to see what we could capture.  Sure enough, it started raining meaning one of us has to stand over and protect the camera, tripod, photographer etc. with a large umbrella.   This allows the other person to compose the shots and capture the interesting landscapes while remaining relatively dry.  Like the Bass to Guitar, the Half-back to the Full-back and all other Blues-Rock Bands to the Stones, the less skilled has to give way to the more talented.  With Linda the somewhat better photographer (wait for it) the umbrella role has traditionally fallen to you know who …yep.. ME.  So there I stood on a rocky Maine beach in the pouring down rain while my lovely wife took her own sweet damn time taking what is sure to be  fantastic pictures.   After at least 3 hours she decided every inch of the beach had been sufficiently captured at least twice and it was time to go.  At this point in time, she put the cap on the glass and informed her Umbrella B*tch it was time to pack up.  This I dutifully performed with optimistic hopes of one day having my own flunky… I mean assistant.

Well  now, let’s just jump forward to say… I don’t know… hmmm.. okay, a month ago.  Setting the stage, imagine that Linda and I have entered pictures in the local county fair photography competition.  We have been doing this for a number of years now and really more of just a fun thing to do in order to get free passes to the fair.  I say that mainly to because we have NEVER ever ever ever actually earned a ribbon at any of these events, but pretty cool to see your work on display for everyone to admire.  Already resigned to another shut out, we walked into the display building to check out all the other efforts.  It is really a learning activity as well since you can experience the creativity of others and find interesting perspectives on angles, lighting, coloring etc. you may not have considered in your own works.  After a few minutes we looked over to the winner’s wall and were both shocked.  Turns out one of MY photos was on the wall with a ribbon attached to it.  Did I mention it was “MY” photo… as in a picture “I” took.  A quick scan of the rest of the wall confirmed that this was the only winning picture from our submitted set.  Now I am not one to gloat (who am I kidding, I love to gloat), but it appears there is a changing of the guard so to speak.  Or maybe more accurately, a passing of the torch where in the torch is actually the handle of the UMBRELLA.  I think this might actually turn out to be one great year especially with all the rain we have been having lately and what is sure to become my favorite weekend activity.   Hey, honey, it looks like it’s going to storm, what do you say we go get some lightning pictures?  This is going to be fun (at least until fair time comes around again, but that is a long long long way off).

I should probably make a quick, but funny admission.  The picture that actually won (embedded in the umbrella graphic above) was actually a last minute decision.  We had it hanging on the wall for a year or two and had actually planned to submit another photo instead.  I can’t remember if I ended up not liking the other picture or we miscounted on our tags, but we ended up taking it off the wall and entering it.  Oh well, a win is a win in my book (even if it is only an Honorable Mention which Linda keeps reminding me).