Lake Crescent NWR

It has been quite awhile since I have undated my blog, seems like IG has been where I have landed with my photos but I miss the journaling about them, it is like a photo dairy of the trips, the learning curve, equip used and just overall fun with Dan.  We went out to western Nebraska for a long weekend to explore this NWR and were blessed to see burrowing owls plus numerous other birds.  There is nothing like the wide open spaces of the sandhills, blue skies and green grasses for miles.

Feeding Frenzy at Sunset

  We went for a drive in the country on the 4th of July and came upon a feeding frenzy of barn swallows.  The little one would sit with it's mouth open watching the sky and she would appear out of nowhere and cram a bug literally down it's throat! I was using my 70-200 with the 1.4TCiii and have been quite pleased how they work together.

The original "goose" from Top Gun

  I know they are only geese but they are so graceful when flying by.  Hand holding the 150-600 still is quite a struggle but I am getting better at it.

Boring Bird on a Fence

  This started as a boring image of a cute little bird on a fence but I decided to try a composite with texture to see what I could do with it.  I started in On1 and layered the bird image on top of the background and masked the background through at 100% opacity, then I painted in and out at about 20% the edges until I was happy with it.  Moved into effects and applied a texture, back into layers where I applied my background on top this time, using the lighten blending mode.  Now into LR where I did some basic adjustment, radial filter and vignette.  Not perfect but for my first composite type image I am happy with the outcome.  Now for more YouTube videos to learn some more techniques.

Bird on fence image

 

Background

Finished composite
 



Slip Sliding Away

The swans were like ice skaters and some seemed more at ease walking on the ice than others.

Squaw Creek

  Made a trip to Squaw Creek last week with Cathy who had never been there and had a fantastic day filled with sunshine and warmer temperatures and lots of laughing.  Not as much bird activity as we were hoping for but it was just so nice to be out in the fresh air with my camera in hand.  The eagles were not too plentifully but the trumpeter swan numbers were great and still a fair amount of snow geese.

 

 



Ruby-crowned Kinglet

When we set up camp at Flagg Ranch our kitchen window was right against one of the cedar trees, the first evening we were presented with a musical to go along with our supper and for every meal there after.  This little guy could sing like no other and flit around like he thought he was a hummingbird, it was quite entertaining.  These were taken through the windows and one of them had the screen on it so they are a little distorted

.

and the Oscar goes to...

  Our inspiration for photo forum this week and a pretty plain jane image of a hawk that I had so I decided to see what I could do with it.  Usually you apply the textures over the image but this time I applied the image over the texture and then masked it through.  I then added a layer with an image of a hawk tattoo pattern and found the Birdman font. I started in LR, then PSE, then On One and back into LR.   I definitely need to learn to use my Wacom tablet, this is incentive to get that bad boy out and learn to master it instead of letting it master me.  Ha!

Feed One

A before and after of a ho hum image that I used several textures on and am quite happy with the transformation.

it became.

Owl Prowl

 

Rowe had an Owl Prowl on Saturday night while we were camping at Fort Kearney and since we were only a few miles away decided to go and check it out. There were two volunteers from the Raptor Recovery center doing a presentation and these images are of their education birds. They have been physically injured or in case of one of them mentally disabled and not able to be returned to the wild.  By Federal Law they either need to be used as "ed" birds or be put down.  There were about 40 people present with several children, the volunteers did a great job at the end explaining to the kids how important school was if they were interested in working with the raptors.  We elected not to go on the actual walk since it got so late and there was no light for photographing. 

Great Blue Heron

I finished up the morning by doing a quick drive around Holmes Lake and happened upon this guy and he was not at all threatened by me being near by.  God is such an amazing creator!

 

Stagecoach State Recreation

 

Kris and I went out this morning to Stagecoach and Wagon Train State Recreation areas and were blessed to see lots of different types of birds, the robin was actually in Kris's tree in her front yard.