Priscilla's
Bird Photography

Photos from personal trips  AND trips with
Birds of Oregon and General Science, (BOGS) in association with Eugene's Celeste Campbell Center

This was another of what seemed like an infinite string of cool morning days with high temperatures in the afternoons, and almost no clouds to be seen anywhere.

This was our last bird walk for the Summer, and we had about seventeen people, which is more than on any other trip this Summer. The presence of Debby, Beth Ann, and Ginny gave the trip something of a "fall preview" feeling, as next week we will be seeing all the school-year regulars again.

This was another of what seemed like an infinite string of cool morning days with high temperatures in the afternoons, and almost no clouds to be seen anywhere.

At Campbell Center, me, Mary M, Don, Donna, LaRue, Bill and Christy - seven of us - gathered and arranged car-pooling. When we arrived at Delta Ponds, the parking lot was nearly completely full because several others drove there directly. By the time everyone arrived, (all seventeen of us) we almost had to shuttle a few cars down to the south parking lot, but we just got by without having to do that.

1. Priscilla
2. Don
3. Mary M.
4. Terry
5. Pat
6. Barbara
7. Larue
8. Jo
9. Betsy

10. Jackie
11. Christy
12. Bill
13. Donna
14. Debby
15. Beth Ann
16. Ginny
17. Bredan

We started out by going down the trail along the north shore, by-passing the observation deck until later. Quite a bit of muddy shoreline was exposed along that route so we did in fact find some shorebirds to enjoy and study.

Some of them were close enough to see with binoculars, but others were further away. Don's photographs suggest these might be Western Sandpipers.

Closer to us was a Greater Yellowlegs, which was recognized pretty quickly, though the bright backlighting and brightly lit leaves on the pond surface made the seeing somewhat difficult. This picture was taken using some "over-exposure" to brighten the bird more than how it looked to our eyes, bringing out more features.

The human eye iris closes down when there is a lot of bright light such as that surrounding this bird coming in, so our eyes see only a dark image with little color and limited markings visible.

But before it did so, while the Yellowlegs was still severely backlit, there was a smaller shorebird feeding nearby. This bird was not as small as a Western or Least Sandpiper. This bird too was lit by direct sunlight from behind, so it was difficult to see colors well.

-We actually spent a considerable amount of time trying to get a good look at it's field marks. Everyone had their field guides out and we were all discussing what we thought we saw and thought the bird might be. You won't see what the problem was from the pictures below, but that's because the lighting prevented us from getting these diagnostic photographs until quite some time into the process.

I was surprised at how hard and long our group worked on identifying this bird. Three of us (Don Laufer, Terry Smith, and myself) were taking pictures and eventually we established that this bird had dark - not bright yellow - legs and a clear white eye-ring. Terry also said it had a dark rump when flying, so we concluded that it was a solitary Sandpiper.

I was very happy we got to watch a Solitary as long as we did, and to get a pretty firm ID on it. This bird flew away after we identified it, but a while later it flew back in close enough for us to watch it some more. We were not actually sure it was the same bird or even the same species of bird when it returned, so we worked on identifying the species all over again. This time it was very close to a Greater Yellowlegs for a while, which gave us a nice size comparison to make use of.

In the sequence of photographs below I have taken a hop-skip-jump through and beyond the laborious process we went through and gone straight to four photo sequence which quickly shows what it took us a long time to establish in the field.
The first photo shows the size comparison of the two birds.

In this same area, (the north shore), as well as way over on the east side of the ponds later on, a few Wood Ducks were seen in the distance. Some of these were adults, both males and females, while some appeared to be juvenile males.

At this time of year, (late August), adult male Wood Ducks are coming out of or have completely emerged from eclipse plumage. I've just learned that because the time period during which Wood Ducks males are drab looking is very short, like an eclipse of the Sun, their drab non-breeding plumage is called "eclipse plumage". For other birds, like song birds, the non-breeding plumage is called "basic plumage" and breeding plumage is called "alternate plumage". For songbirds, the breeding plumage is generally only a portion of the year, while with Wood Ducks it goes on most of the year.

At the same time that adult male Wood Ducks are lacking their brilliant plumage, the year's new juvenile males are developing plumage which looks much like the "lame duck" drakes. But I think our local Wood Ducks are nearly in full breeding plumage by the end of August. I have photographs taken last year on September 16, in which the males are in full regalia.

In the picture below, the duck in the lead is an adult male, and I'm pretty sure the one following it is a juvenile male. The duck in the lead is clearly in or nearly in complete breeding plumage, while the one behind lacks the crest on the head; has a lighter shade of body color; and lacks the tan and white along its flanks. If its bill was not orange I would be even more sure that it is a juvenile since that change (to an orange bill) is one of the last changes which is easy to see as the juvenile becomes an adult.

By the end of August, the juvenile males have already developed the white "bridle" stripes coming up from under their chin and neck up onto the side and back of the face; making them resemble the adult males even more. Then its a matter of looking for an orange bill, the orange-red eye and a crest on the head. If the bird with the white bridle markings (ie, a male bird) lacks those features, it is most likely juvenile rather than an adult in eclipse plumage.
From my photographic study of several Wood Duck families last Summer, these white "bridle" stripes are the first easily seen indicator that a juvenile Wood Duck will develop into a male adult. Before this time, they have the large white eye-ring just like the female juveniles and female adults. The juvenile males begin losing the large white eye-ring around the same time as they develop the white bridle markings, and another few weeks later, the eyes of those differentiating to males become orange, and so do the base of their bills.
The bill then progressively becomes orange out towards the tip as a crest also develops slowly on their heads.

I have not managed to isolate visible changes which are as easily seen in juvenile females (siblings of the males) during this same time period. What I have seen is that their white eye-patches do grow larger slowly during these weeks, and I've seen some deep green on the top of their heads during this time also. But so far, that's about all I've noticed with the juvenile females while the males are going through their more conspicuous changes.

Before we reached the wooden bridge near the south parking lot, some of our group were already peeling away to make other appointments and such, even though it was only 10am. Perhaps we devoted too much time to the shorebirds.

There were exposed gravel shoals near the south end of the large pond, and these had several Killdeer running about. Don got a really great close-up of one of these.

We came across a Green Heron which was maybe only about 100 feet away from us. Don, Terry and I all took photographs of this bird. I only took one, because I wanted the others to have a chance to photograph this bird before it flew away.

I wanted to see what Terry's larger-lens camera would be able to do with this bird and I wanted to compare his photo with Don's and mine. When I showed Terry's photo at the first BOGS gathering this Fall, people gasped with pleasure.

One thing I notice with our Canon SX50 "superzoom" cameras is that sometimes a portion of a photo will be crisp and sharp, while other portions will be less so. You can see that clearly in both my and Don's Green Heron photos. The head and eye seem especially sharp while the upper body and breast appear to be less sharply defined.

In contrast, Terry's photo is sharp all the way across the bird. I don't think this is a depth-of-field issue since those feathers are the same distance from the camera as the head of the bird.

I suspect it has to do with the processing of the image which is done by the camera when it is converted from RAW data to an image in JPG format.

Photographers more serious than me work with the RAW data image files rather than the jpg file. The Canon SX50 does have the ability to save RAW image data files, but I've never looked into how to process those. It might be possible to get a sharper picture out of these Green Heron photos using the RAW data, but at least up to now, I'm not motivated enough to learn what I'd need to learn to do that.

Here are the birds I was able to remember
from the Delta Ponds bird walk.
Twenty-three species seen or heard on 8/28/14.

1. Canada Goose
2. Pied-billed Grebe Unsure
3. Great Blue Heron - adult
   Great Blue Heron - Juvenile; very evenly gray, no plume on head, no long feathers anywhere
4. Green Heron
5. Turkey Vulture
6. Osprey
7. Red-tailed Hawk Unsure
8. Mourning Dove
9. Anna's Hummingbird
10. Belted Kingfisher
11. Northern Flicker - seen and heard
12. Western Wood-Pewee; seen, fairly sure

13. Willow Flycatcher; seen but still unsure;
    Willow Flycatcher (one heard)
14. Kinglet perhaps, or Hutton's Vireo ... unsure. Only brief glimpse
15. Steller's Jay - numerous and highly vocal
16. Western Scrub-Jay
17. Red-breasted Nuthatch - two seen
18. American Robin
19. Spotted Towhee
20. Song Sparrow (some seen; some only heard)
21. Black-headed Grosbeak; adult female and possibly a family
22. Purple Finch or house finch.
23. American Goldfinch - unconfirmed but most likely