Maine Moose in July

Bull Maine Moose in early morning light

We traveled to Maine the week of July 13 with our 10 year old grand daughter. We wanted her to have a wilderness experience at a young age to stimulate learning about the outdoors and to develop an appreciation of animals and natural beauty.  A portion of our trip was spent near the beach and then Baxter Park, but the wilderness experience was in a cabin in the North Maine Woods far from any traveled roads. here is a bull moose that she was able to photograph while sitting in a kayak.  This bull was very hungry and we were able to spend an hour with him three times that day. Once in early morning light, once during harsh afternoon light and finally in the Golden Light Hour in the evening. 

Taken by Ashtyn Mecca while in kayak with D80 and 70-300 lens

we spent most of our times kayaking a lake and the incoming stream and we were fortunate to see 40 plus moose. 

I found this bull at sunrise with three yearling moose not far from the cabin.  I could hear them in the water in the dark.  I got in the kayak and paddled upstream a short distance from the cabin to try to catch them at sunrise. the setting was backlit-but it achieved the effect I wanted. What a majestic animal and what a way to see one!

Sunrise Bull

Ashtyn enjoyed herself and is ready to go back for more!  Here is a shot she captured of a bull shaking the water off.

Here is sunset the first night.

We had a cow moose hanging around the cabin the entire time we were there and the second evening she decided to cross the entrance to the lake in front of the cabin at sunset.

Until next time

Jim Borden

Scenics and Light

Nubble Lighthouse and High Tide as evening approaches

I just returned from a trip to Maine looking for Moose, birds and scenics.  It was cloudy and rainy for almost the entire trip-but that did not dampen my spirits.  My professional photographer friend Mark Picard once told me "there is no such thing as bad lighting-we just have to figure out how to use the light we have".   I got to experience much of that on this trip.  On my way to the North Woods I stopped at Nubble light and had planned on getting the moonrise over the light at 10 PM. The afternoon started with clear skies and there were a few other photographers there snapping away.  The tide was going out and the skies were almost cloudless.  this can make a good image-but not a stunning image for me.

As the afternoon wore on, the clouds started moving in and some photographers packed up and left.  I thought the clouds added "character" to the scene.  I expanded my view by using a wider setting on the lens so I could capture more of the interesting clouds.

By 7:30 in the evening all of the other photographers had packed up and gone and just prior to the rain, I thought the lighthouse had more character yet depicting why lighthouses existed.

I should have used more lens correction on this shot as the lighthouse looks slightly tipped due to the edge effects of the wide angle lens. 

The following afternoon found me photographing the "Cribworks" on the West Branch of the Penobscot River under stormy skies with friend Chris White.  I will make a separate blog entry describing the "flow" of the water in photographs. 

Thursday morning brought more fog and mist and this image of a moose in a misty pond shows moose life in reality.

The next morning we were in the North Maine Woods paddling a remote stream looking for moose.  It was a peaceful setting.

On the way out of the woods I stopped again in Millinocket for the night (I highly recommend the Big Moose Inn). The following morning I had intended to head for home but met  friend Lee Cordner at breakfast and decided to spend some time photographing with him. We stopped on the Abol Bridge over the West Branch of the Penobscot River to view Mt Katahdin. This image may lack a central, strong subject-but I liked the reflection of the clouds on the river.

I proceeded from Millinocket to the coast to visit a couple of lighthouses on the way home. The fog rolled in again as I approached Pemaquid Light and I decided to stop anyway. It was a beautiful afternoon there with the fog and the in rushing tide crashing on the rocks. 

My last evening in Maine was once again spent at Nubble light. The tide was at high mark as the "golden hour" approached and the skies had character. 

Until Next Time.

Jim Borden

Birding Time-Warblers and Other Songbirds

Blackburnian Warbler

Spent Saturday June 15 birding with friend James Hoyson in the morning and wife Joan in afternoon.  Area of concentration was Lackawanna State Forest-a new area for me.  It was a productive day--the song birds were singing and we had nice light with the diffused sun rays in the forest. I used D800, D4 and Nikon 600 through the day with some shots I used a flash with better beamer for shadow fill. 

Canada Warbler

Scarlet Tanager

Scarlet Tanager

Black Throated Green Warbler

Black throated Blue Warbler

Had been busy so pictures from our trip to Pine Creek with friends Gary and Kim Amatrudo had not been posted.  Here are some highlights from that trip.

Common Merganser family

Baltimore Oriole

Rain drops on Dame's Rocket

Chipmunk

Common Yellowthroat

Water Lily

Great Blue Heron

Red Eye Vireo

Female Red Wing Black Bird

Yellow Swallowtail

Rhododendron

Until Next Time

Jim Borden

Shore Birds

Osprey with fish

Joan and I traveled to Connecticut to spend times with friends Gary and Kim Amatrudo photographing Shore Birds.  They chauffeured us around and we had the opportunity to see many species of birds even though it was a cold and windy weekend.  I added a life bird to my list-Little Blue Heron. 

Little Blue Heron at Hammonsett Beach CT

Willet in Breeding Plumage

Osprey in Flight

Osprey landing

Mallard in Flight

Osprey on Fairly new nest

Least Sandpiper

Snowy Egret

Great Egret

Until Next Time

Jim Borden

Immature Great Horned Owls

We have had Great Horned Owls near us for years.  I shared photos of an adult last August.  We looked this winter for the owls and their nest and were not successful.  This past week we saw one of the adults and heard the young bill snapping.  Later that evening I went back out and found two young ones. 

Until next time

Jim Borden

Local Screech Owl

Our neighbor called one evening and said he had owls in his barn.  He said he thought they were barn owls.  Just as we arrived a Barn Owl flew from the barn and flew across the field to the woods.  We thought we had missed the opportunity but went in the barn for a look.  There sat a little screech owl!  he posed for us and then continued his nap :)

Until Next time

Jim Borden

Boreal Owl and Gray Partridge

Boreal Owl

I traveled back to Ontario Canada for the third time in a month in search of owls and other birds of the North.  Thanks to contacts in Ottawa (Wilson Hum and Bruce Di Labio ) I was able to add the Boreal Owl to my life list.  The cute little bird was nestled in a cluster of spruce trees.  I had to crawl back into the center of the cluster to get a clear shot of the owl.  It was not at all disturbed by our presence.  As there is still much controversy about flash photography and owls, I prefer not to use any form of fill flash on them.  Therefore, the low light capability of the Nikon D4 body came in real handy.  I shot from tripod with Nikon D4 and Nikon 300 f4 lens at f7.1 with a shutter speed of 1/320 and ISO 4000.  Even using f7.1, the depth of field at this subject distance did not allow for the full depth of field of the owl (notice out of focus feathers at back of head).   I watched as others attempted to shoot handheld with cameras incapable of clean images at this lighting due to elevated ISO.  My point is that the camera does not do the shooting and we have to do the framing, composition and get exposure right and teh higher technology camera bodies add a tool to our toolbox to allow us to get images we would not otherwise get. 

The owl opened its eyes slightly and looked as a lady fumbled in the 18 to 20 inches of snow to get to see the owl.  We retreated from the area to let the owl alone. 

Gray Partridge

I toured the area in search of other owls and birds. I was out looking for snowy owls when I came upon four Gray Partridge running around on top of the snow.  I saw two more Great Gray Owls near dark and the setting was terrible for getting good images-so I sat and enjoyed their presence.  I look forward to returning to the north country next winter. 

Until next time

Jim Borden

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