As I mentioned in my last blog, it appears that winter weather is finally with us.  To me that means winter photography with all its limitations, starting with slower shutter speeds and, (a hard swallow!), higher ISOs.  However it's not all bad... for the most part I won't have to contend with shadows from foliage, beaks and the birds' own faces.  And winter provides a break from the summer birds and provides the opportunity to photograph whole new classes of winter visitors.  It's one of those with which I'll begin.

Saturday, on my way home from breakfast out I spied my first winter loon (presumably a Common loon) in the local yacht basin.  I hustled home, grabbed my camera and arrived in time for some photos.  Unfortunately it was raining during much of this photography session, but not enough to make a disastrous difference.  And this was the first time I had the opportunity to use a lens rest that I designed and constructed for the passenger side of my car a couple of months ago.  (It worked very well!)

I was a considerable distance from the loon and had to settle for photos that will not look good when blown up, but I obtained some interesting photos.  I tried again for photos today and found the loon again, but was at least as far away and it never quit raining and blowing for the entire hour or more I tracked the bird.  But for better or worse, here are a few photos...

When I first photographed the loon it had just surfaced with a fish... one that I would have thought would have more or less sufficed for a day's worth of food.  As a matter of fact, the loon spent the next hour or so preening. 

And just to give you an idea of the capabilities of the camera (Nikon D300S) and lens (Nikon 200-400mm f4.0) with which I'm working.  The image below is the original image as recorded on my camera.  As you can see, the photo above discards probably more than 90% of the recorded image.  That I can recover as good an image as I have seems truly remarkable!  

 

If you have the patience, after much preening the loons will usually stretch their wings which can provide a really interesting photo... unfortunately at a too-slow shutter speed.   

I think it's really onto me now!  

And now that you've been sated with loon photos, here's a Killdeer I encountered on the way out of the marina area.  These birds are usually quite easy to photograph when using a car as a blind.