A Morning At Middle Creek Part 3-Camera Critters

Tundra swans and snow geese are the two major attractions at Middle Creek at this time of year, but as was mentioned in A Morning At Middle Creek Part 1, we were too late to see the large flocks of these birds, but did encounter a few tundra swans as they flew north away from Middle Creek Lake.

Tundra Swans

We also found  flocks of snow geese circling around willow point, so we parked and walked Willow Point Trail to the observation area. 

Snow Geese Circle Willow Point

Once there, we photographed and filmed the geese as they arrived and joined the birds already on the water.  We later learned that an estimated 10,000 snow geese were at Middle Creek that day.

Flock Of Snow Geese On Middle Creek Lake At Willow Point

All photos are with the Canon 100-400mmF5.6 L.  The first photo was taken with the 40-D body, the remainder with the 7-D.

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A Morning At Middle Creek-Part 2

During our recent visit to Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area we found several species feeding in potholes in the meadows, which are bisected by Kleinfeltersville Road.  This is a highly restricted area, with plenty of signs warning one to stay out.  This means that one has to photograph the waterfowl at whatever range it presents itself.

I used the 500mmF4 and 2x extender for the following shot of a male Ring Necked Duck.  One must use manual focus with this combination on the Canon 7D as auto-focus will not work at f8.  The images taken with this setup were not tack sharp either because I missed the focus point, because of subject motion, or because the 500mmF4 and the 2x extender are not compatible. Some report excellent results with this combination while others are unhappy.  Based on discussion with other Canon prime lens  users, I do think that the 2x extender is a much more viable accessory for the 300 f2.8, and I have seen a lot of outstanding results with this combination, but I have gotten unacceptable results more often than not with a wide range of Canon models, including the 10-D, 30-D, 40-D, and now the 7D when using the 500mm with this extender.

Male Ring Necked Duck-Pothole Directly Across Road From Middle Creek Lake

Later in the morning we found a few isolated snow geese and a male and female Northern Shoveler feeding in another pothole.

 I used the 1.4 extender and 500mmF4 for these photos, which yielded somewhat better results, but one still needed to be closer so the photographs would not require as much cropping to obtain satisfactory subject size.

Snow Geese And Northern Shoveler Drake

Male And Female Norther Shoveler

Black Ducks, and Ruddy Ducks were also seen today, but I did not get acceptable photographs of them.  In past years I have photographed or filmed numerous other species in these potholes such as Pintail, Gadwall and Scaup.

I leave you with another thought on extenders.  While I find the 1.4X to be satisfactory with the 500F4, nothing can replace  being close enough to shoot without an extender or severely cropping the image, but sometimes we do not have that choice and the extender can save the day.

A Morning At Middle Creek

Early morning, March 19th found Coy Hill of Country Captures and I headed down the Pennsylvania Turnpike for Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area. There we met my daughter Amy of Ashe's Eye. The goal was to photograph the large flocks of snow geese and tundra swans that are usually in the area at this time of year, but unfortunately the main migration had moved on.

My favorite spot to begin a Middle Creek photo shoot, is where Kleinfeltersville  Road passes by the edge of the lake.  This affords a good view of the lake and a chance for dramatic photo opportunities as the sun rises. 

Middle Creek Lake-Before Sunrise

I concentrated on filming the scenery and the waterfowl as the sun came up, so I did not capture the actual moment of sunrise with still photos.  It is especially spectacular when large numbers of waterfowl, which have spent the night on the water, leave in vast flocks to feed in the surrounding fields, but this did not happen today as not enough birds were present.

Canada Geese And Other Waterfowl

Even though the large numbers of snow geese had moved on there were other species present, and the weather was superb, which made the day another outstanding experience in the great outdoors.

 Canada Geese

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Blog Thieves

Thanks to a tip from a fellow photographer I found that all of my blog entries are being posted on Photo Grind.com without being properly credited to me. It seems they are doing this to a lot of other nature oriented blogs also. To add insult to injury they actually have a copyright notice on each page, so they steal your material and then claim copyright privileges to it.

Stealing Photos And Content-What A Way To Go

Photo by W.Hill Any unauthorized use of this is THEFT

It seems that they are enrolled in AdSense and use this ploy to bring readers to their site. One can file a complaint with Adsense, but they must list all of the posts that were stolen and this must be done by fax or e-mail.

In the future all posts on this blog will include the following:

Original content posted at  http://pawildlifephotographer.blogspot.com/ If this content appears elsewhere without proper accreditation, it is stolen content.