Posts Tagged ‘birding’

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Come on People, I’m Not Cute!!!

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Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012
Great Gray Owl

Great Gray Owl by Josh Haas

Let’s just bring it right out in the open: everybody thinks Owls are cute. The funny thing is, the cuteness typically ends at their face. While some Owls have this persona of “cute,” hopefully all of us can see through it and realize they are actually tenacious hunters at heart.

This blog brings to the table a story of a person who came upon an injured Great Horned Owl on the road. She thought the Owl looked at her with a “call for help” and they were immediately bonded. Because of this, she couldn’t believe this Owl could ever hurt her. After proceeding to ride in the car with the uncovered bird in her lap to the Rehabilitator, lucky for her the lethargic wild animal didn’t fully come to. For this situation, timing was everything. Luck was in the air as the bird stayed in a coma-like state just long enough. It wasn’t until about 30 minutes after the Rehabilitator had the bird that it finally came out of it and showed its true inner beauty of pure strength and power. Thank goodness the bird didn’t come out of it in the car with these folks. The Rehabilitator couldn’t believe how lucky they were and tried to ensure they learned from this experience.

Great Horned Owl

Great Horned Owl by Josh Haas

As humans, we are very lucky in many ways. We have a different way of understanding and adaptations that have made us superior beings. For some, this means we owe it to animals and nature to step in from time to time. This is a great attitude to have but keeping it in perspective is important. In some cases, Rehabilitators rarely see much money for their efforts and a lot of what they do is their own dedication of time and resources. Think about donating or volunteering with these folks and help them continue doing what they are trained to do.

It’s wonderful to have folks that want to help, especially in situations where human impact was to blame and not Nature but remember that any wild animal needs to be approached safely and by those with experience. For me, Owls aren’t cute. I’m always inspired by their incredible senses and ability to hunt with grace and power. Remember, behind that cute face is a wild animal that does one thing and one thing well: hunt!

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The Limpkin’s Prize

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Tuesday, February 21st, 2012

Limpkin with Apple Snail by Rosemary Allen

This is the time in our dry down with little or no rain occurring during the winter months. Some of the water from the sheet flow settles deeper into the pools found in the lowest sections of the cypress swamp. It was here that I was able to witness the bird behavior that keeps me coming back for more. This late winter landscape was a calm scene. Afternoon sunlight lit up the water through the still leafless cypress and the ponds were abundant with aquatic life. Wading birds close by included a Great Egret, White Ibis, Little Blue Heron and Great Blue Heron. Anhingas were courting with the males bringing one token branch after another to a female who wanted nothing to do with their offerings. A Black-crowned Night Heron perched on a branch farther out across the pond preening and waking up. Barred Owls called to each other in the distance.

Limpkin excavating snail by Rosemary Allen

But this late afternoon the star of the show was a limpkin wading in the dark clean water with a tip on the end of his bill that curved slightly to the right, meant for only one thing. This individual was particularly vocal and excited as it continued to find and remove one apple snail after another from their right-handed shell. After retrieving what was perhaps the largest one in this body of water, the Great Blue Heron, the master it seems at wading through these waters with patience and grace, slowly tuned his focus toward the Limpkin. The Limpkin headed toward the shallow end, using some floating vegetation to support his prize. His struggle to retrieve his prey pulled not only me in for a closer look, but the patient and graceful Great Blue Heron as well, a bird that appears to have elevated standing meditation to an art form in the bird world. At the point where the meat dangled from the shell and his satisfaction was imminent, this swamp story unfolded with an unexpected ending. The patient and graceful Great Blue Heron made his move, pouncing from behind with his bill aimed at the apple snail. But the Limpkin was keen to his sneaky ways and slipped out with the expertise of a martial artist, devouring his meal in a less crowded area of the pond. The heron would have to be patient a little longer.

Great Blue Heron by Rosemary Allen

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Great Backyard Bird Count

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Friday, February 17th, 2012

Downy Woodpecker adult male, eastern © Adrian & Jane Binns/VIREO

Scientists and bird watchers can learn a lot just by knowing where birds are located at any given time. But birds are always on the move and populations constantly rise and fall. No single scientist or even a team of scientists could hope to document the complex distribution and movements of so many species over huge landscapes in such a short time as just four days. Enter the Great Backyard Bird Count, and thousands of bird watchers like you.

The Great Backyard Bird Count is an annual four-day event that engaging bird watchers of all ages in counting birds to create a real-time snapshot of where the birds are across the entire continent. This year the count will take place from February 17-20th. Anyone can participate, from beginning bird watchers to experts. It takes as little as 15 minutes on one day, or you can count for as long as you like each day of the event at as many places as you’d like.

Northern Cardinal, adult male © Glenn Bartley/VIREO

You don’t have to be a bird expert to participate. If you see a species you can’t identify, consult Audubon Guides for help. But if you’re still not sure what the bird is, you don’t have to report that species. Only report the ones you do know. There is something everyone can contribute to this project.

Last year GBBC participants reported 594 species on more than 92,000 lists—counting more than 11.4 million birds for the GBBC. Warmer temperatures and lack of snow in parts of North America are setting the stage for what could be a most intriguing count yet.

American Robin © Garth McElroy/VIREO

Past counts have shown the highest probability of finding American Robins in areas without snow. That probability dropped dramatically in areas with even just a few centimeters of snow cover. In the Northeast this year we are seeing unprecedented numbers of American Robins in the north and we are also experiencing record low snow pack.

Over the last 15 years, GBBC participants have helped track the spread of Eurasian Collared-Doves. Native to Europe, these doves escaped captivity and first appeared in Florida in the 1980’s. They have been expanding their range ever since. In the most recent count, participants reported Eurasian Collared-Doves in 40 states and provinces, and it was even reported from Alaska for the first time during the 2011 GBBC!

Eurasian Collared-Dove © Rob Curtis/VIREO

Every sighting reported in the Great Backyard Bird Count becomes part of a permanent record that anyone with Internet access can explore. You can use the information to track year-to-year changes in the abundance and distribution of birds and learn about the complex patterns of winter bird movements. Look for trends that indicate how well birds are faring in the face of environmental changes such as urbanization, global climate change, and disease. Grab your Audubon Guides Bird app and join all of us this weekend for the Great Backyard Bird Count. For more information visit www.birdcount.org

Top 10 Reported Birds in 2011

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Winter Sparrows

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Thursday, February 16th, 2012

As I related in my last post on ducks, the winter months can appear to be a slow period for birding. However, in addition to ducks, there is another group of birds that is more diverse and easy to observe in the winter compared to the summer: the sparrows.

Sparrows have always had the bad rap of looking the same and being difficult to identify. They are often lumped into a group of birds called the “lbj’s” or “little brown jobbies”: birds that all look the same and aren’t worth the time it takes to identify them. To these folks I say: nonsense! With some patience, sparrow identification is pretty straightforward with most species having obvious features that can be used for identification.

Song Sparrow © Drew Weber

Across much of North America, the Song Sparrow is the default sparrow. It is worth the time to really get to know the field marks of Song Sparrows. It has smudgy red-brown streaks on its chest and a spot in the center of its chest.

White-throated Sparrow © Drew Weber

During the winter months, one of the most common sparrows is the White-throated Sparrow. Aptly named, the White-throated Sparrow has a bright white patch on its throat, as well as white stripes on its head that turn bright yellow near the beak. These are one of the most common feeder birds in many areas, especially when snow has covered up their more natural food sources.

White-crowned Sparrow © Drew Weber

A close relative, the White-crowned Sparrow, has bold black and white barring on its head. White-crowned Sparrows are less common at feeders, often tending to hang around overgrown hedgerows along fields. Depending on the habitat around your yard, you may be lucky enough to host these large sparrows.

Dark-eyed Junco © Drew Weber

Another easy to identify winter sparrow is the boldly patterned Dark-eyed Junco. Dark above and white below, the little twittering noises of these birds as they scavenge for seeds under my feeder always makes me happy. Juncos vary widely in their plumage across their range and it can be fun to scan through the flocks, looking for a ‘pink-sided’ junco.

American Tree Sparrow © Drew Weber

The most northern of the winter sparrows is the American Tree Sparrow. With its red cap, it is superficially similar to the Chipping Sparrow, a summertime resident. However, the bi-colored bill and spot on the breast separate it from Chipping Sparrow.

These are the most common sparrows you will encounter during the winter in the northeast. Most of them have pretty distinctive features, so the next time you see a sparrow hopping under the feeder or in the shrubs, take the time to identify it and add it to the list of birds that you can quickly recognize.

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A Gift for Your Sweetheart and the Birds

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Tuesday, February 14th, 2012

Birds are at the heart of the modern origin of Valentine’s Day when it was said in the Middle Ages in Europe that the second week of the second month birds began to mate.

“For this was seynt on Valentyne’s day
Whan every foul cometh ther to choose his mate”
- Chaucer’s “Parliament of Foules”

Nesting season, what a perfect time to find our own Valentine! And a present of chocolate might just put our loved one in the right frame of mind. In southern Mexico and parts of Central America, frothy chocolate drinks have been served at weddings for thousands of years. Casanova is said to have consumed chocolate to enhance his performance. For centuries, humans have believed in the power of chocolate.

Today, we’re clearly hooked on chocolate. From 1970 to 1995, the world production of it doubled. According to a 2009 Nielsen report, Americans spend about $345 million dollars on 58 million pounds of chocolate for Valentine’s Day.

Here’s where birds come into the story once again. Chocolate comes from the seeds of Cacao trees (Theobroma cacao), which is native to tropical lowland rain forests of Central and South America. Lot’s of the chocolate we purchase comes from these areas and many of the songbirds that greet us each summer morning pass the winter there.

Adult Bicknell's Thrush © Steve Faccio/VIREO

Cacao is grown in the understory in the shade of tall trees. Scientists have compared bird communities in shade grown Cacao plantations with forest fragments in Panama and found them to be fairly similar. They found over 200 different kinds of birds with 86 species found in cacao only and only 46 in forest fragments only. Eighteen species of migratory songbirds were found only in Cacao. With lowland rainforest disappearing or fragmented, shade grown Cacao (and shade grown coffee) is becoming more and more important for bird conservation.

While much of the Cacao is still grown in the traditional way under a forest canopy, many growers are now clearing forests to cultivate the trees in more open plantations. Organic chocolate is made from shade-grown Cacao. It often supports fair trade practices, where farmers and workers harvesting the beans are paid fairly, and the Cacao is grown without the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides.

Jesus and Jaime Moreno, businessmen and conservationists from the Dominican Republic, visited Mount Mansfield in Vermont and joined me to see a Bicknell’s Thrush a few years ago. This bird breeds here in the mountains and winters in the Caribbean where the Moreno’s live. It is one of the rarest migratory songbirds in North America. Luckily, I was able to not only show them the bird singing, but I captured one during my research work. I let one of them hold the bird and let it go after I banded it. They couldn’t believe this little bird sitting on the palm of their hand would fly thousands of miles to their home in just a few months.

Adult Male Bicknell's Thrush © Tim Laman/VIREO

The Moreno brothers were inspired. Back home they decided to invent and market a new ice cream flavor from their company that would help raise awareness and money for Bicknell’s Thrush conservation. The ice cream is called Choco-Maple, possibly the first flavor ever created for a migratory bird. The idea was to combine distinctive flavors from both ends of the Bicknell’s Thrush migratory range, organic cacao and macadamia nuts grown in the Dominican Republic and maple syrup from Vermont. Profits are donated to help conserve Bicknell’s Thrush habitat.

Although the ice cream is only available in the Dominican Republic, you can do your share to help conserve songbird habitat through your buying power. This year think about purchasing organic chocolate (and coffee) to please your Valentine and the birds.

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The Big Spit

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Friday, February 10th, 2012

I was supposed to go to Florida for a couple of months this winter. Toss my binoculars, my bird guides, my bathing suit, my golf clubs and my dog into the camper and head south. Ah, warmth.

They call Florida a peninsula, but it’s just a giant sandbar. A friend of mine calls it “The Big Spit”. I was really looking forward to being roasted brown. Well, those plans went out the window.

Then I got an invitation from my long-time friend Charlie Rattigan to join him at the Space Coast Birding and Nature Festival. I knew nothing about the festival, but Titusville, Florida had to be warmer than Winnipeg. And it was in an area where I could finally, maybe, find the Florida Scrub-Jay, a bird that had eluded me on three previous trips to The Sunshine State. Maybe the Red-cockaded Woodpecker and the Brown-headed Nuthatch too.

Getting a plane ticket at the very last minute means one thing: bad itinerary. I had to get up at 4:00 am, fly to Chicago, wait there, fly to Cleveland, wait there, then fly to Orlando. Wait there too — for Charlie to arrive. ARRRRGH! Fourteen hours sitting on airline seats and in noisy terminals!

Only one week in Florida instead of two months: I’d better make the most of it.

We got to Titusville a day before the festival began and decided to do some preliminary birding on our own. Using the Audubon Birds app with its “Find Birds with eBird” connection on Charlie’s iPhone, we quickly found out where Florida Scrub-jays had recently been spotted. Of the numerous sightings, Cape Canaveral National Seashore seemed like the perfect choice; it was not only close but shared a border with Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.

When we got to the fee station on Merritt Island, we asked the ranger on duty where the Scrub-jays were. An affable, talkative guy, he told us to park the car and walk behind the ranger station. We couldn’t believe it. They could be right there!

Then again, the curse of the mythical Florida Scrub-Jay could still be operational. I’d missed a sure thing before; I could be unlucky again.

Before we began walking around, we checked the app for the songs and calls of the jay, not as noisy and insistent as a Blue Jay. The Florida Scrub-Jay is quieter, a more modest “shreep.”

Right away we saw a jay-sized grayish bird scooting through the bushes. Could we be so lucky as to see a Scrub Jay this quickly? Nope. It was a Northern Mockingbird (very plentiful in Florida).

Northern Mockingbird © James M. Wedge/VIREO

Was that a “shreep” we heard on the other side of the bushes? Was that the mockingbird mocking us, imitating the jay?

We cut though the bushes and got to an opening where the railroad tracks separated the refuge from the Kennedy Space Center. We’d been warned not to go past the tracks. For a second I thought to myself: am I willing to be clapped in jail for a lifer? Will I have to cross the tracks to find the elusive Florida Scrub-Jay?

In the time it took to ask and answer my own question, it became irrelevant. A Scrub-jay appeared as if out of nowhere, flying across the tracks from the Space Center property and perched in a small tree next to the tracks. Then suddenly another, and another, and another. Four Scrub-Jays. Three hopping on the tracks coming ever closer. We hoisted our binoculars and took them in. Soon we didn’t really need to. They were close enough to see clearly with the naked eye. These are lovely birds. A blue that reminds me of the color of a Mountain Bluebird with a white throat and a necklace of blue.

Florida Scrub-Jay © Arthur Morris/VIREO

These Scrub-jays were curious and fearless like their cousins the Gray Jays, the “Whiskey Jacks.” The boldest one, with four leg bands, bounced along the railroad ties and came within a foot of my boots. The three others, without bands, got within six feet or so, but no closer. The jays stayed until we had imprinted them indelibly in our minds. What a great way to get a lifer!

On our way out, we thanked the park ranger. He asked if we were interested in owls too. When we said yes, he told us to stop down the road and look in an open field surrounded by a fence.

There on a fifty foot high pole was an Osprey nest. In the nest was a Great Horned Owl. Clearly, a lazy but feisty owl.

Great Horned Owl adult, Eastern © Johann Schumacher/VIREO

We poked around the island some more. Man, there are a lot of vultures in Florida! Has the economic depression attracted them in such numbers, or is it always like this? Hardly a minute passed without us seeing either a Black or a Turkey Vulture, often dozens at a time. Soaring, teetering, swooping and looking for carrion. Eerie!

And Coots. Coots everywhere! The ponds and lagoons of Merritt Island are full of coots. We saw hundreds and hundreds at a time. And lovely views of Snow and Great egrets with an occasional Tricolored heron in the mix of birds.

Our daily list had reached thirty birds in less than three hours when we decided to head out. We’d seen some great birds: a Bald Eagle (always a thrill), Northern Cardinals, Pine warblers, Boat-tailed Grackles (better vocalizations than their Common cousins), Red-bellied woodpeckers (pretty common), Eurasian Collared-Doves, and White Ibises, to mention just a few.

White Ibis adult, breeding © Arthur Morris/VIREO

On our way off the island we decided to stop at a beach on the north side of the road just before the bridge. We’d seen some gulls and waders along the shore from a distance.

The gulls included: Ring-billed, Bonaparte’s, Laughing, Great Black-backed. There were some interesting terns. Forster’s (always a special treat) and side-by-side a Caspian and a Royal Tern, offering a great opportunity to note the subtle differences. White crown and yellow-orange bill on the Royals, black skullcap and red-orange bill on the Caspian.

Among the gulls and terns, a special bird for me, also turned out to be a lifer. Black skimmers, close to 100 birds resting about 10 yards offshore on land that had not been covered by the tide. One took off and flew closer. With its lower mandible skimming the smooth surface of the lagoon, it was unmistakable – even for someone who has never seen one before.

Black Skimmer adult, breeding © Arthur Morris/VIREO

We then turned our attention to the shorebirds. Shorebirds are a challenging species for me and many people. It’s often impossible to distinguish one from another, particularly when they are dressed in their winter plumage. It can be frustrating. Paying attention to behaviour near the water’s edge will provide the observer with ID clues.

There were Ruddy Turnstones, turning stones: always fun to see, sanderlings behaving like wind up toys, and dunlins actively feeding.

It was a remarkable morning of birding – sharing the experience of seeing two life birds with my friend as well as the enjoyment and challenge of finding and identifying birds in this still wild area shared with scrub-jays, rockets, and astronauts.

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Gray Jays May Prefer Spruce Brand Refrigerators

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Wednesday, February 8th, 2012

Gray Jay watching Kent eat his lunch in the White Mountains, NH

For decades Dan Strickland, chief park naturalist (now retired), for Algonquin Park in Ontario devoted his spare time to Gray Jays. He captured and banded them each year and followed their nests each winter year after year after year. Looking back he began to notice that the jay population had slowly declined since the 1970s. Over half of the 50 territories he monitored since 1964 became vacant in the 1970s and have not been occupied since.

Gray Jays are hardy birds. They nest during the late winter in the deep cold and snow with temperatures as low as -22 F (-30 C). There isn’t much food around the north woods at these temperatures. But the jays have a solution, scatter-hoard food during the summer and fall.

When other birds are busy raising young, Gray Jays are busy storing food for the winter ahead. They have oversized salivary glands that produce copious amounts of thick, sticky saliva to effectively glue a wad of food together to stick it in a tree behind a flake of bark, under a chunk of lichen, in coniferous foliage or the fork of a branch. Leaving hundreds or perhaps even thousands of caches of food hidden around their territories allows them to not only survive the winter, but also raise young in it.

Strickland and his colleagues found a strong correlation between the declining Gray jay population at Algonquin Park and warmer fall temperatures. They also noted that territories that were lost and never occupied again had more hardwood trees and fewer spruce trees. Nests that were consistently successful were on territories with over 40 percent conifer trees.

Gray Jay adult, Rocky Mountain © Adrian & Jane Binns/VIREO

The biologists wondered if perhaps certain trees were important for preserving the jay’s food hoards, perishable things such as insects, meat and suet, fruit, and other items. Somehow, the caches have to remain relatively intact for months before they are eaten.

During the winter deer, moose and snowshoe hare nibble on tree bark and branches. Many conifer trees defend themselves with thick bark and by producing toxic resins. Perhaps these trees help to preserve the balls of food?

Moose

To test their idea they constructed artificial storage chambers that kept the food items stored between an inner layer and outer layer of bark, mimicking Gray Jay caches. They put a 100 of these on each tree species. Months later the food caches on conifer trees, especially spruces, had lost little biomass while those on hardwoods like sugar maple were just a fraction of the original weight.

At least at the southern fringe of their range, Gray Jays probably prefer spruce brand refrigerators for their food storage needs. With warming temperatures in the northern forests, other cache dependent species may also be vulnerable to spoiled food.

If you’d like to read the original scientific publication, see Dan Strickland, Brian Kielstra, D. Ryan Norris. Experimental evidence for a novel mechanism driving variation in habitat quality in a food-caching bird. Oecologia, 2011; DOI: 10.1007/s00442-011-2040-y

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Nuthatches: A Different Perspective

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Tuesday, February 7th, 2012

I find that the appeal of nuthatches lie in the fact that they do things a bit differently than most other birds: they hunt in the “wrong” direction. They scramble headfirst down a tree trunk with more grace and agility than a woodpecker hitches upwards.

White-breasted Nuthatch, adult male © James M. Wedge/VIREO

Nuthatches don’t forage upside-down to be contrary, of course. They’ve just found a way to exploit resources that might be overlooked by woodpeckers, creepers, and other bark-gleaning species that use a more conventional approach. Of the two dozen plus species of nuthatches in the world, four are found in North America: White-breasted Nuthatch, Red-breasted Nuthatch, Brown-headed Nuthatch, and Pygmy Nuthatch.

Red-breasted Nuthatch, adult male © Claude Nadeau/VIREO

The topsy-turvy lifestyle isn’t the only thing that makes nuthatches engaging and unique. Brown-headed Nuthatches are known to use twigs to pry insects out of crevices; few of our other songbirds are known to use tools. Red-breasted Nuthatches use pine resin to spackle the edges of their nest holes, which is thought to help deter predators. White-breasted Nuthatches sometimes wipe blister beetles around their nest entrances for the same reason – these beetles exude an acidic substance. Clever!

Brown-headed Nuthatch, adult © Brian E. Small/VIREO

Nuthatches aren’t creative vocalists. All have some variation of a nasal, two-noted, “yank-yank” call. Naturalist John Burroughs described the more muted courtship calls of the White-breasted Nuthatch “like the voice of children, plaintive but contented, a soft interrogation in the ear of the sylvan gods.” Lofty admiration for such modest birds.

Pygmy, adult © Brian E. Small/VIREO

As an ornithologist, I have seen and worked with many birds in my lifetime. Of all the exotic and interesting birds I’ve seen, the familiar nuthatches remain my favorites. They simply appeal to the determined, if not rugged, individualist in me.

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In the Year 2000 – The Osprey

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Monday, February 6th, 2012

Osprey by Jungle Pete

By the year 2000 Ospreys and Bald Eagles will be extinct.

That is what my 3rd grade teacher told me in 1978. Chemicals were killing the birds including Brown Pelicans, Cormorants and other fishing eating birds. The year 2000 was a long time away and seemingly in a galaxy far, far away and yet for my eight year old, Star Wars-obsessed brain, the notion of extinction was real and saddening to me.

Brown Pelican - adult, breeding, Eastern © Arthur Morris/VIREO

My teacher had oversimplified the problem but I wouldn’t understand that until years later. In fact the ban on harmful chemicals, such as DDT, years earlier had begun the reversal of misfortunate that many of these birds had endured. DDT, an effective chemical pesticide used in the control of malaria-spreading mosquitoes was considered to be the culprit in the decline of many fish-eating bird populations. The chemical bioaccumulates in fatty tissues of animals as it works its way from the base of the food chain, from plant, to invertebrate, to fish, to bird. When the female birds would lay eggs, the DDT inhibited calcium deposition in eggshells resulting in thin eggs that were often crushed by the incubating adults.

http://audubonguides.com/species/Birds/Osprey.html

After DDT was banned from use in the United States in 1972, the chemical slowly worked its way out of the environment, including wildlife and humans and the affected bird populations began to recover.

Twelve years after my teacher’s apocalyptic prophecy, the sight of an Osprey taking flight over a body of water in Florida is relatively common. I routinely have the opportunity to watch Ospreys swoop down over the water and with spiculed-talons, grab a fish to eat. The spicules are sharp spines that impale their prey and make it easier for them to catch slippery fish. Nests are conspicuous accumulations of hefty sticks in trees, on utility poles or on human-made Osprey nesting platforms.

The population rebound for many of the species affected by DDT and other chemicals is very encouraging. Yet I would say to the children of today, the health of our ecosystems is still in jeopardy and unless we fix drainage issues, stop nutrient overloads and prevent further habitat loss, species such as the Wood Stork, Roseate Spoonbill and Florida Panther will be extinct by 2030.

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Let the Environment Tell a Story

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Friday, February 3rd, 2012

Belted Kingfisher by Josh Haas

So many new photographers dream of that full-framed shot of the bird they’ve been after for years. It’s never a bad thing to have a big goal such as this but in the meantime, it might be time better spent shooting for a different style of image that tells a much more creative story.

When it comes to bird photography, especially from birders turned photographers, the full frame image is the goal. When all is said and done, these can still be beautiful images but, in my opinion, they fall very short creatively and compositionally. Think of all the times in nature when a special moment happens in front of your eyes. You know a moment like this is probably only going to happen once and there is much more to the story than just a picture of your subject alone. This is where a wider field of view that showcases the environment around your subject comes into play. Many people reading this may realize just how skittish the Belted Kingfisher is. Full frame images of this flighty species are typically only possible using the sit and wait technique while in a hide. There are times, however, when backing off a bit with your composition can give a creative view that allows the environment around the bird to tell a different story. The image above of the Kingfisher sets a misty mood where the dead branches and cobwebs offer the viewers’ eyes something extra.

Often the lack of focal length may force you to be further from your subjects. Try not to look at this as a negative. In the case of the image below, showing the Bald Eagle smaller in view shows just how small the bird is relative to its environment. One slight miscalculation and the bird ends up in the frigid February waters of the Mississippi River. This definitely tells a different story of our Nation’s master predator.

Bald Eagle by Josh Haas

When it comes to creative and compositionally pleasing images, try to think outside the box and add a little environment around your subjects. Your viewers and critiques will likely spend more time looking at those images and give much more positive feedback!

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