It is hot outside and one would expect the Butterfly Wonderland to be hot and humid. It is, but not quite as bad as we were anticipating. Our disappointment was that there are no new 'kinds' of butterflies, we saw no moths and not a single special finch. We made the best of it. Photographing butterflies is always a good exercise for a photographer. Enjoy our best.
Magnolia blossom.
Magnolia.
Another title for this blog post could be 'back to cool'. Shooting with weather in the 70s is always nice. Being with good friends adds to the 'cool factor'. Getting a photograph of an osprey with a fish, secure in its talons . . . well now that is really cool!
The fish is being carried parallel to the osprey's body. I assume it is carried that way to minimize wind resistance.
This trip had us looking up, looking down and looking across. We arrived about midday and the light was terrible. But overcast skies can be great for flowers. And here are a lot of wildflowers up on the Rim.
We stopped at two lakes. Bear Canyon Lake is a 12 mile dirt road off of the Rim Road. I love it because it is quiet, peaceful, almost no people and the trees come right down to the water. The sky was overcast. The lack of a beach makes setting up a good composition a bit more challenging. We stopped at Woods Canyon Lake next and by then the sky had become filled with late monsoon clouds. Beach, people and boats make for more interesting compositions.
Bear Canyon Lake
Bear Canyon Lake
Woods Canyon Lake
Woods Canyon Lake
There are three nice viewpoints along the Rim Road. During the week there is usually plenty of parking spaces. You can actually hike along a very nice trail between the three points. We arrived in late afternoon and managed to get in just a few minutes of gold between the clouds.
That is Tom on the ledge.
As a child, I spent a number of years in the tropics and I remember the macaw as a gorgeous and smart bird. They can also be loud! Len was able to spend about 2 1/2 hours capturing the macaw in flight. Here are the photos he sent to share. His story is at the end.
My first thought is that this is a lot of photos of just one kind of bird. Then I really looked at each one. They are not the same!! Each one highlights a special beauty of this special bird.
Here is Len's story. "My trip to Costa Rica was wonderful because of the birds but I also had a chance to try new techniques with my photography. One day we went to a ranch that has free flying Macaws. We had a wonderful lunch there but also had a chance to see wild macaws in flight. The objective was to get flight pictures. The rancher loves his wild macaws and has taught them to fly to him towards him. Their reward is peanuts in the shell. We were positioned on the side of a hill. The macaws hang out in a tall tree at the top of the hill and the rancher went to another tree at the bottom of the hill. He would then call in Spanish " Macaw Macaw" repeatedly. Some times the Macaws would come sometimes they wouldn't. We spent about 2 1/2 hours trying to get pictures of the macaws in flight.
We set our cameras in Manuel Mode and our lens in Auto Focus. We used high ISO, multiple exposure and fast shutter speeds. We were hand holding our cameras. We were told that if we able to get a few pictures in focus we would be doing very well. I am an old duck hunter so I was able to understand leading the birds. I am sure with more practice it would get better but it was sure fun with such beautiful subjects."
Thanks so much for sharing Len. May you have many more birding trips!