Photographing Wading Birds

Like most wildlife photographers, one of my first subjects was a Great Blue Heron. That pathetic image of a lone GBH, dead centered, perched on a boat buoy a thousand miles away still resides in my files as a reminder of my beginnings. One of North America’s most common and recognizable birds, the Great Blue Heron is also one of the most poorly photographed birds over and over again. The very nature of the heron, tall, vertical, living in a watery world and in many locations, incredibly shy, all lend themselves to poor results. Regrettably the time I have with these beautiful birds is limited, they just don’t haunt my typical locales. But over the decades, I‘ve gotten my feet wet more than once, photographing the Great Blue Heron and other members of the wading bird family. The successes I’ve had and my switch to all digital combined with my desire to improve all my conventional files in digital, keep me striving to improve my wading bird files. These are some of the lessons I’ve learned in my quest to capture these elegant birds on film that I’d like to share with you!

Just how do you get close?

Biology

As with any subject, getting close is the name of the game. There are a number of techniques available to solve this problem. Quite often, we’ll commonly combine a couple of these techniques to get the shot. Some of the techniques are obvious, others may not be. Common sense like most things in photography wins out and captures the best image.

You probably can already think through our first option, biology. One reason why I love to photograph wading birds in Florida in February is because biology is thick in the air at that time of year; it’s the birds and the bees time of year. It seems that the bigger the subject, the larger the libido and the greater the distraction sex brings. You’ll find this is true for wading birds. Another great advantage to photographing wading birds this time of year is that they are all in their breeding plumes. Their beautiful breeding plumes, which was the cause of their near extinction in the early 1800’s is still a powerful magnet for the wildlife photographer.

Using breeding biology to get close physically can best be explained by closely looking at the common Great Blue Heron. Anyone who has been to Florida in the late winter months has most assuredly been to the Venice Rookery (a scenic locale behind the local highway patrol office). This is a hot bed of breeding especially considering the rookery is smaller than a tennis court. It’s here that you can see all cycles of the nesting biology of the Great Blue Heron in one day! Understanding their story pretty well explains what’s up with all wading birds when it comes to the birds and the bees.

Courtship rituals start and continue on through the nesting process for GBH. A big part of it has to do with the presentation of a stick/twig by the male to the female. If you want to mess with the mind of a male GBH, collect a ton of small twigs and make a pile of them. The male GBH’s first thoughts are, “Wow, I’ve died and gone to heaven!” Next, it’s “Man, am I going to score!” And lastly, “which one to select first?” The male GBH goes through testing a lot of different twigs before he selects the one he wants to present to his mate. The twigs eventually get used in nest construction so I’m sure the stage the nest is in construction determines the twig he selects.

How does this help your photography and getting close physically? Find the twig source and stake it out! All you really have to do is watch because very quickly you’ll see where the birds are gathering their twigs. You set yourself up with the right lighting, background and start shooting. Now you don’t start ten feet away but rather farther than you want to be for the image size desired. You slowly work your way in as the birds come back to get more twigs. This is just one biological technique you can use to get close. (A very important photographic technique at Venice Rookery is simply moving. Too many folks set up their tripod and never move all morning long. Your tripod has legs, so do you, so use them!)

When the GBH takes the twig back to the nest, he presents it to the female. More often than not early in the season, copulation occurs. Here’s another biological event you can use to get close physically. And don’t forget that anywhere during all of this are other great photographic opportunities you can capture on film, like the male flying back to the nest with the twig. If you keep your mind open and don’t drink too much coffee early in the morning, you can score too!

Another year round biological event you can use to get close physically is when the birds are feeding. Whether feeding alone or in a mass, food usually keeps wading birds’ attention pretty well focused (get it? focused, photography – hah, bad pun!). You normally know when wading birds are foraging because they are frozen in some sort of funny pose, staring off into the water. This is not a guaranteed way of getting close physically though compared to sex.

When using food/feeding as a distraction to your approach, you need to watch for a couple of things. While it’s not life threatening, you want to avoid causing the subject to miss its opportunity to eat, so here’s the game plan I use. I start the approach so that the background I want is the one that is always behind the subject as I move closer. I don’t want to even do any fine-tuning of the background if at all possible so as not to disturb the subject. My camera is set before I approach: f/stop, film counter, everything. And quite often I will have a teleconverter attached so I don’t have to get as close physically compared to shooting without one.

I watch the eyes! The subject typically isn’t making much if any body movement, but it will be moving its eyes as it tracks its prey. By watching the eyes, you’ll know things like if the food source is moving, how close it is to the bird and if it’s close enough to be caught. You’ll also know if the subject is being bothered by your approach. Don’t be in a hurry to get nothing! Move slowly, ever so slowly to get close physically.

The photo of the Reddish Egret with the flying fish (right in front of its breast) is a great example of this technique in use, with a twist. This Reddish Egret was photographed at Ft Myers Beach while it was foraging. What was unique about the situation is that I’m standing in water, the same as the subject. In approaching a subject while walking in water, you must make real sure you don’t disturb the water! This means that you walk by shuffling your feet along the bottom, not picking them up out of the water and then setting them back in and splashing. This is essential and in the natural process of doing this makes you walk slower! At the same time, when you pick up your tripod to move forward, you want to bring it up slowly and set it down slowly so it doesn’t splash as well. Once you’re in place, be sure to push the front tripod leg in the mud a ways for a stable platform to shoot from.

With all of those beautiful long feathers, preening is a common activity of wading birds. This is something you can take advantage of to get close physically! While they can preen anytime of the day, it is most common in the early morning before they head out foraging and in the late evening before they go to roost. You must be slow in approaching a bird that is preening because even though they might have their mind on straightening their feathers, they are also on guard for predators. And as far as they are concerned, photographers are predators.

Another excellent opportunity to photograph wading birds is when they are asleep! This is something you might want to tackle only if you have patience. Obviously getting close physically isn’t a challenged as long as you’re quite. This means that you’re all set to shoot prior to setting down the tripod to fire. If the bird is a little ways out in the water or up in a branch above eyelevel, you’ll have the best opportunity to find a bird that is deep asleep.

The patience part comes in as you wait for the bird to wake up. You naturally take a couple shots of the bird asleep with its eye’s closed, but that’s not the most desired of posses. The last thing I want you to do is cough or slam a car door (yes, I’ve seen this done) in an attempt to wake the bird either. You just wait because unless it’s standing dead, it will wake up. Most of the time when they awake and they find your standing there, they will perform rather than take flight. So waiting can pay big dividends!

With wading birds all being big or bigger than most birds, watching them to learn their biology is really simple. Unless they have been bothered in the past by humans, they are generally on the friendly side. If you find a place in Florida where fishermen are cleaning their catch, you’re sure to find at least one wading bird you could probably pet! Learn their biology and you’ll get close physically!

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Optics

You’re probably saying, “Well yeah…duh, go buy a big lens and you’ll solve all of your problems.” Well I hate to say it, but in some sense that is the truth! For an excellent example of how and why this is so, I turn again to the Venice Rookery. When it comes to getting physically close to the action on the island, you can only get as close to the island as the edge of the lagoon (unless you can walk on the backs of alligators!). This means that optics are required to get the image size desired.

I see lots of folks at the rookery, shooting with 300mm lenses while I’m shooting at 840mm and I’m wishing at times I had more. What are they seeing I’m not, or, what am I capturing that they aren’t? Wading birds in general live in a watery world, typically a large body of water. All it takes for them to move out of camera range is to walk 50+ feet away, further out into the water and we’re out of business! While it’s true in some locations that you can proceed right out into the water as well, more often than not you’re going to need more glass.

So, what’ the minimum? If we’re photographing birds in every situation except flight, I can’t imagine shooting with anything shorter than 600mm. Can you reach 600mm with a 300mm and 2x teleconverter? Sure, but then you’re battling the fact that you can’t go any longer, two stops of light loss and an incredibly shallow depth of field. For myself, I can’t start with anything less than 600mm, but I typically don’t stop there. More often than not, the 1.4x teleconverter is attached to the 600mm. This gives me 840mm to work with, the focal length I most prefer to photograph birds, any bird.

There is another HUGE benefit to the longer glass that you’ll come across at places like Ding Darling NWR in Florida. Wading birds live in a rather busy world, one with sticks, grasses, roots and the like all around them. All of this living matter can really ruin a great photograph! There is nothing worse than having a Green Heron in gorgeous light at Alligator Alley with a background of roots going every which way! Not that a long lens will make all of the roots go away, but the longer the lens, the narrower the angle of view, which means the less background you’ll see.

Where this is truly effective is when you have just one twig, one other bird or some small thing in the background you want to disappear. With the long lens and its narrow angle of view, moving slightly to the left, right, up or down can make it disappear.

Perhaps you don’t have money for a long lens, I can understand that. You have an option open to you that you might not have considered, going digital. How does this gain you greater optical reach? Because digital cameras only capture half of a lens’ optical path, the result is an increase in focal length by 50%. You can pick up a used D1 for around $2500 and when married to an 80-400VR, you have a 120-600mm lens! This combo is a lot less than a new 600f4AFS II. Something to consider!

I can honestly say that on my last trip to Florida when I shot with the D1, 600f4 AFS and TC-14e at 1260mm, it was really fun and incredibly productive. And in a pinch I could use the TC-20e 2x and have 1800mm! When I first used this combo for photographing wading birds at the Venice Rookery, man was it ever fun. Getting up close and personal with some of the subjects was killer, incredibly easy and most of all, yielded marvelous quality.

What about flight shots? Photographing their massive wings is too way cool to describe in words, so by all means you want to go after flight shots. Whenever I’m in Florida photographing wading birds, I always have a second body on my side with a lens attached just for flight photography. Last year when I was in Florida I used the 80-400VR. This lens is tack sharp but when it comes to focus acquisition from a dead stop, you might as well go for a cup of coffee (unless you prefocus but that’s hard to do from a dead stop). I did come back with some marvelous flight shots, but it was more work than fun.

If I were to be shooting right this moment I would have the 300f4 AFS. When attached to the D1/X/H, this is a 450f4 AFS lens, it screams! While this can be too much lens at times for photographing a six foot wing span in flight, the speed of acquisition is just too good to be true!

I don’t want you to think that flight photography is for handheld glass! Photographing birds in flight is a no-brainer using the Wimberley Head and a long lens. The only real trick is to be sure you use proper long lens technique and stand between the legs of your tripod when shooting. Looking at my files, I figure that it’s 50/50 the number of flight images of wading birds I capture handheld versus tripod bound.

The best of all worlds is to get close physically with long glass. You’ll find the vast majority of great wading bird images were taken in that manner. But that’s just the start to photographing wading birds successfully!

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Hey, aren’t these white birds on blue water?

Of course they are, so we automatically dial in +1 stop compensation so we can shoot. NOT! The old “white bird on blue water” let’s get rich articles really should be retired, along with those writing them. There is no such thing as a subject that requires automatic compensation and white birds are no exception. Actually, photographing white birds on blue water is a no-brainer if you use your brains!

What’s the key to this, a gray card? NO, not that either!!!! The key to getting the exposure correct is the light. You must shoot within the three-stop range of light that the film can hold if you want perfect white bird on blue water exposure. You can get it when the light is not within three stops, but your birds are going to be dark or your water is going to be dark; you can’t have both.

Probably more than most birds, these graceful creatures require an eloquent light to be shown off at their best. When a soft breeze off the Gulf of Mexico is fluffing those breeding plumes, I can’t think of any other lighting than less than two stops of early morning or late evening light. When you work within this range not only will you have ZERO metering problems, you’ll have captured in my opinion the essence of the wading bird.

Can I tell you one time not to photograph white birds on blue water, that’s when the water is gray! Any bird, wading bird or not should not be photographed on water when there is overcast skies in my opinion. I don’t think there is anything worse than this type of images! Yeah, you can dial in plus compensation to brighten up the image, but it will now just be a brighter shade of gray.

This pertains to flight shots as well. DON’T DO IT on overcast days! The other giant problem besides the horrible gray background is exposure. Shooting up on a bird with a gray background is a no win situation when it comes to metering. The underside of the bird that you are photographing is going to be dark to black while the sky is gray. This will well beyond the three stops of light you want for the best images.Wait for the blue and three stops of light, you and your images will be much happier!

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Which way do I turn the camera?

Do I shoot these critters horizontally or vertically? This is a very common question in which you might not find a comfortable answer for yourself for some time. Do I have my own personal set of guidelines for shooting one way or the other? I sure don’t. When deciding which format to shoot a subject, vertical or horizontal, I ask myself (in a heartbeat in reality) a couple of questions. First and foremost what does my gut say? If I don’t have a firm feeling one way or the other, I ask myself other questions.

With my main focus always being the background, I wonder if I can remove unwanted elements in the background by going either vertically or horizontally. There are times that a smaller subject can be made to appear larger by going vertical, so I ask myself this question. Going through this very informal checklist which at times I might not be able to do at all because time doesn’t permit is simply my own requirements of what I’m looking for in my images.

I wonder for example if there are elements in the subject itself that one format over the other will emphasize or de-emphasize. At the same time I look at the watery background and see it’s really cool. Will one format or the other emphasize it? These are not rules you need to commit to memory; they are just questions I ask myself in deciding if I’m going vertical or horizontal.

I have a good friend who is emphatic about framing in regards to the bird’s feet. Whether you can actually see the feet or not (hidden below the water’s surface) you need to leave space for them to be present. In other words if you can’t actually see the feet, leave room in the photo for them anyways, don’t crop them out. As you can see from my images, I don’t hold to this rule myself. My point is that each one of us must find the style that we like from our own vision to make the images magical!

I’m fortunate that now after two decades much of this is so second nature that I really don’t rationalize through the decision process when I’m actually shooting. What’s right for me might either be right or wrong for you, and that’s perfectly fine! Photography has lots of variables built into it, use them to your advantage and you’ll come out a winner!

I’ve included two images here, both of the same Snowy Egret shot late one afternoon at Ft Myers Beach. Both shots were taken just seconds apart of the exact same bird. The subject size is nearly the same in both frames. The natural orientation of the Snowy Egret is horizontal. It’s strolling along, shifting its feet in the mud trying to scare up a Goby to eat. Its very intent stare into the water and the lighting on its breeding plumes is what caught my attention. Instead of my having to move closer to the egret, I let its foraging path bring it to me.

You’ll notice there is nothing in the background that needs to be removed. The water itself is nothing special and there is no reflection. Of the two formats, which do I prefer? I like the vertical because for me, it captures what it was that moment to be a Snowy Egret. There is no right or wrong answer, but perhaps one that is simply better for you and what you want to communicate!

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One exception to V or H

There is one thing that when I see it, I automatically go vertical and that’s reflections. When the air is still and the water like a mirror, my mind starts looking for reflections, which means I turn my camera vertically. If I have one rule, that’s got to be it.

There are actually times you can plan for reflections and make them happen. The best example is pre-dawn at Ft Myers Beach and post-sunset at Ding Darling. The first obvious thing here is, there is no one else around at these times which can really help you succeed! This is essential because I find myself often in the water at Ft Myers Beach in the early am. And at Ding Darling, most folks pack their bags and fold their tents and go home once the sun sets which to me is when some of the best photography is just beginning. In either case, it’s the weaning light levels that I’m looking for as well as certain biology.

It’s at these hours that wading birds preen. I’ve already discussed how we can use this activity to get close physically, but I didn’t mention the other really great part of preening. When birds preen, they open up their feathers and show them off for all of their magnificence! In spring that means breeding plumes and I can’t think of anything better to show twice in a photograph than breeding plumes all fanned out!

This activity is a two edge sword though when it comes to photography. It lends itself to some of the best poses of wading birds to be captured in a reflection. At the same time, this activity involves movement as the bird cleans each bard on each feather. This is something you don’t want when there is no light (no, VR or IS will not help in low light when the subject is moving!) and of course, no shutter speed. One of my favorite ways to photograph wading birds then is one of the trickiest!

After getting up early or staying late, after finding the subject on a mirror surface, after turning the camera vertically, there is one other very important thing to do. That’s dial in exposure compensation! We’re working in basically no light and while our meter will deliver the right exposure, who wants the right metering reading for dark! I generally start by dialing in +2 stops and work my way down to 0 from there. How do you know how much is enough compensation? If you’re shooting conventional, you bracket for effect and if you’re shooting digital, you check your monitor and histograms. Bracketing for effect means just that, you have no idea what effect the plus compensation is going to render so you bracket and make your selection once you have your film back. With digital, you simply view your image and information and compensate accordingly.

Most importantly your exposing for personal preference! There is no really right or wrong but rather, personal taste in what you want to or not to communicate in your image. I can guarantee you that the viewer of your image will have no clue how you exposed for the scene, let alone the time of day you actually took the photo. If you thought you had enough on your mind selecting vertical or horizontal, you ain’t seen nothing until you get into these unique scenarios where the truly spectacular images are captured!

One last tidbit on photographing the reflections of wading birds that are preening. Quite often they will flare out their wing, turn their head upside down and preen away. This is an awesome photographic opportunity if you’re ready for it. Besides all that I’ve already written above, to capture this shot, you need to wait for peak of action. In this case, the peak of action is when the bird has finished running a feather through its bill and stops for just a heartbeat before grabbing the next feather. You either need to have a lightning fast trigger finger or no problem depressing the shutter release and letting the captures fly! Of all my wading bird images, it’s this pose in this type of light that I love the most!

There are some photographers out there that I’ve met who do nothing but photograph wading birds. Who can blame them? Waders are both eloquent and challenging! I know that if they were where I am, I sure would spend one heck of a lot more time photographing them. For beginner to experienced alike, they make for great subjects to learn from and photograph. I’m still learning after twenty years and I hope you too have just as long a time learning from these beautiful members of our avian world!

Maine Moose

Traveling through a glowing tunnel of yellow even though the sun was still below the horizon, the fall color of Maine lit the way as we came to the trailhead parking. We set up our cameras and started up the trail. The weather report promised ideal Moose photography weather, slight overcast and cool temps, which turned out to be off only a tad. We reached the pond and a cow Moose greeted us along with wind driven snow that stung our cheeks. The wind gusts that blew off my hat didn’t slow down the shutters because as the little sunlight that was breaching the clouds appeared so did five Maine Moose!

This might sound a little strange, but I’ve got Moose fever! One image that still eludes me after all the thousands upon thousands I’ve captured, is that of a giant bull Moose with its head slightly cocked like that of my logo. I made two big pushes in 2001 to capture that image; both times I came close but no cigar. The last attempt was in the heart of Maine in October. The trip was killer, absolutely knock you down gorgeous with the fall color and fantastic Moose ops. It was more than the heart could take at times! And while I didn’t get my giant bull shot, I want to share with you the adventures we had with Maine Moose.

The Days’ Events

Hitting the road at 5:10am, we went to our favorite local diner for breakfast. We quickly became “regulars” and were well taken care of because by 5:45 we would be out the door for our hour drive. In the predawn darkness we couldn’t see much of the magical tunnel of fall color that we were zooming through. On our first day we were rained out of our Moose locale, so I opted for fall color photography and good thing we did because the next storm that night finished it all off. The second day, we had snow in our faces. We were getting the hint that Mother Nature wasn’t going to make it easy for us to succeed!

We reached the parking lot in Baxter State Park ten minutes before sunrise each morning, saddled up our gear and began the walk up the trail. For the group’s first exposure to Sandy Stream Pond was a cow Moose twenty feet away at sunrise! If the sunrise had delivered all the color it promised, things would have been truly grand but as it was, it was fun because it was the first exposure to Moose for some of the participants.

Over the next couple of hours the weather slowly deteriorated to the point that by noon our cheeks were stinging from the wind driven snow. Leaving a cow and calf, we walked back down the trail and headed back to our motel. This might sound pretty wimpy, but there is no refuge at Sandy Stream Pond; you’re just standing out there and whatever weather is happening, it’s happening on your head.

We awoke the next day to clear skies and brightened hopes. When we reached the pond though, there wasn’t a Moose in sight! In fact, we had a few hours of nothing, well as for Moose, but we did have the most spectacular view that Sandy Stream Pond offers the adventurer willing to get there at sunrise. No sooner had the lunch come out than the Moose appeared and in a short time, a dozen Moose were cruising about the pond in great light!! Yes, I said a dozen, twelve Moose, all within a couple acres of space, some as close as, well you’ll see.

There were a couple of Moose we had already come to know in a short time. One was “spiky,” a bull only a couple years old with poorly formed spikes. This young bull was desperate for love, I mean desperate! We always knew when he was around because the cows would be complaining about his affections! Complaining or moaning, as only a complaining cow Moose can. Another Moose we came to know was the Pond Bitch who had the reputation of treeing folks. She was nothing but sweet to us, as she and her calf provided us with nearly endless photo ops. And it was on this afternoon that we had the “incident” with the Pond Bitch’s calf.

There is a very small wooden boardwalk at one of the viewing points, which is where we were set up. The “boardwalk” reminded me of a wooden, raised cattle guard about fifteen feet long and just wide enough for a tripod. It had wooden slats with spaces between them that made setting up a tripod on the boardwalk difficult. The cow and calf came on over to us, which was quite normal. We’re talking to within just feet of us! I had pulled the group back as far as we could go to give the Moose the right of way. I said to the group, “don’t worry, I can’t imagine they would walk on this boardwalk.” Sure enough, the cow, the Pond Bitch, walked around the boardwalk and us. But not her calf!

The calf walked right up onto the boardwalk and then right to us! How close did the calf get? How about licking a 400f2.8, cleaning the three legs of a carbon fiber tripod and then causing the “incident?” I won’t mention any names, but the calf sexually assaulted two of the male participants! Luckily it only used its tongue and not its teeth because I was laughing so hard it was difficult to take photos (of course, it’s all recorded on film) let alone rescue them! The calf, the sweetest thing you ever did see was incredibly curious and literally all over us. So for a while, we were held captive by a Moose calf!

Now with mom right there and her having the reputation she had, the last thing we wanted to do was startle the calf and have the cow come over to defend it, but we couldn’t let the “incident” proceed. So with a sharp little noise made by squeezing an empty plastic bottle from my jacket pocket, the calf got the message to move on and we went back to taking photos. After that, the Moose went back to their normal routine of eating while the photography in the late afternoon light was just marvelous. But up to this point, the big bull had eluded us. That was all about to change.

The next morning, the clouds were back, the beautiful light of the day before only a memory! We arrived at the pond to find three cow and calf groups feeding. There was no hesitation as the shutters began to rip. With no shortage of Moose photos to capture, I brought home over 2000 new images of just Moose in five days of shooting, two of which were rainouts!

During the entire time, I kept scanning for any flash of white in the trees, signaling the presence of a bull Moose. There was this one little tree of fall foliage that was just at the right height that, when the wind blew it just right, would start my heart to pounding only to be let down once I could zero in on it. And then from the trees emerged a bull, a three year old with barely two tines! This was a “little” bull maybe five years old that would come and go, and its small rack would flash, getting my adrenalin going, but it was no big bull. While better than nothing, he was a far cry from a big boy. This older bull had fun sparing with Spiky (only when there wasn’t a cow around, otherwise Spiky was occupied), which was fun to photograph. The sun came up, brightened up the scene though it didn’t shine directly and we stood there capturing all the photo ops.

Around 9:00am I saw a flash in the forest. I waited a moment to make sure it was moving and not some leaves and then called out, “BULL!” A minute later, a nice bull emerged from the forest, our first for the trip. For the next three hours the big bull shared its affections with a cow and calf until that went nowhere with the other three smaller bulls present. While the big bull presented us with some really nice photo ops, it never came closer than 100 yards from us. For the welfare of the habitat and the Moose, we didn’t go chasing after the Moose, but depended on them coming to us instead. This worked great with the cows and calves, but this bull kept its distance. Not too long before sun down (which was 4:20pm because we were working behind a mountain) the big bull faded back into the forest from where he came and we didn’t see him again for the rest of the trip.

The next two days were tons of fun, but without that big bull that we all really wanted, me especially, it’s safe to say we all had our fill of cow shots. Hearing wolves call one afternoon was a thrill, as well as watching the comings and goings of all the wildlife of the pond. On day four we were driven out by wind and rain at noon and on our last day, we left an hour early, again because of rain and wind. We went on a drive to another section of the park where the sun was still out, a beautiful place called Stump Pond, which also can have Moose at times. It was here while in the forest that I had a Fisher come up to me and greet me. I didn’t have anything to take its picture with at the time, so I just watched it check me out before returning to the small stream and foraging. We finished our trip by photographing a beautiful sunset on Stump Pond.

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Photographing Maine Moose

This was an all-digital safari, as all participants and I shot with the D1, D1X or D1H. This along with current airline inconveniences greatly influenced our photography. Taking into consideration our subject, Moose, my strategy of waiting for them to come to us and shooting digitally, I found the 400f2.8AFS to be the perfect lens. The 80-400VR was also a very popular option and captured great images. One thing much more important though than camera and lens selection in photographing Moose is light!

Moose are kind of the same scenario as photographing Bald Eagles. That’s to say, you have a really dark body and light head, a big exposure range that is killer for film to record. And while digital can record up to five stops of light, this is the last thing you want when photographing Moose. You must have three stops or less of light to really capture great Moose images!

This means that slightly overcast light is ideal for photographing Moose. Their lighter heads and the bottom of their legs along with their really dark bodies scream for less light, not more! This is especially true when they’re out in the pond foraging! Another essential at least for me, is either really quality side lighting and frontlit Moose. A backlit Moose unless done so with a sunrise/sunset just doesn’t look that great. This means that on dark days when the gray clouds are reflecting non-stop off the water, you really have to watch your background or you will have horribly backlit Moose.

The background is essential in Moose photography. They live in a very, very, very, busy world of trees, branches, grasses, shrubs and rocks. The majority of the tree trunks and rocks are bright in color, from silver to white. With these in the background of a dark animal, they stick out and ruin an otherwise great image! This means you must be vigilant in watching the background and know when to depress the shutter release and when not to!

Another very popular lens on this safari was the 28-70f2.8AFS. This lens worked really well when photographing the Moose up close, which we did nearly every hour! The small boardwalk where we stood was a major thoroughfare for the Moose so cows and calves were constantly venturing through. The 28-70 was the perfect focal length to capture just the animal, or the animal as part of a scenic. It was important though when taking the “Moose scenic” to use a split graduated neutral density filter to bring the sky exposure down within the range of the foreground exposure for the film to record.

One last note on photographing Moose, the big bull. We never had the “big boy” but the one nice bull we had brings up a very important point in photographing them. Their racks, those giant antlers and their big nose don’t compositionally fit perfectly into 35mm/digital format. You must “play” with the position of the antlers/head/nose in the frame to make an image that represents the forest giant you’re photographing. I’ve found that going shorter in lens selection works better than going longer.

My first choice for photographing Moose is the 300f2.8AFS II. Because of current airline restrictions, I went with the 400f2.8AFS because it securely fits in the Pro Trekker. Since I knew that on at least one leg of my flight I was going to have to check my camera bag, I wanted the Pro Trekker since it affords the greatest amount of protection. Ideally, I’d take the 300f2.8 in the Nature Trekker, but it is a tad too short to really protect the D1H & 300f2.8. Anyway, why do I prefer the 300f2.8 for Moose?

The 300f2.8 provides me with the focal length that works best with the big rack of the big boys. On the D1H, the 300f2.8AFS is equal to a 450mm lens (the 400mm = 600mm, too big for big game for me). This is pretty darn close to my ideal focal length for big game for my style of photography. Additionally, the 300f2.8AFS can easily and beautifully work with teleconverters so that in case I need longer, it’s no problem.

You might be asking yourself, “Was the Moose photography any good?” We had five days, of which one day was an entire rain out and two others were half days because of either snow or rain. With all of that, I still came back with over 2000 Moose images from the week. That’s pretty darn good shooting! I didn’t come back with THE bull Moose shot, but I was quite happy with some of the images of the bull that was present, like the one on the cover. I would and will go back to Sandy Stream Pond to photograph Moose again, as it’s way too gorgeous and way too much fun not to go back!

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Working Around Moose

Moose are big, ornery, powerful creatures that can change their minds in a heartbeat. There is a good reason why many folks give them wide berth in the wild. Before you go out to photograph Moose, you should do some basic biology homework and understand a few basic facts.

Moose are really, really, big deer. Those large ears are great indicators of what a Moose is thinking. When photographing Moose, you want them thinking happy thoughts, which would be indicated by their ears being forward generally. If the ears are both back, this should be assumed as indicating they are not happy. While this might not be the case, it’s best to assume such. One way that Moose, especially cows, defend themselves is by kicking. In a heartbeat, they can raise themselves up on their back legs and kick deadly blows with their front legs. You never, ever want to put yourself in this kind of danger.

Some folks like to tell about how they were “treed” by a Moose. What this means is, they had to put a tree between them and the Moose, not climb a tree, so as not to get kicked. If you’re walking down a trail and happen upon a Moose, you might have to use this method of defense since you surprised the animal. But you should never have to do this when actually photographing a Moose unless you’ve done something really wrong.

Getting close physically is a technique I often talk about. This is something I don’t advise the Moose photographer, for a number of reasons. One is what I’ve just mentioned above. Another is it can be very difficult in many areas to approach Moose. Living in heavily wooded areas in the northeast, there typically is lots of forest litter on the ground. Moose use those big ears to hear things like twigs snapping under the weight of a predator’s foot. Trying to sneak up on Moose for most folks is just not a good plan because you’re more likely to push them away from you by your very approach.

I think wearing camo clothes is downright silly for wildlife photographers. So is wearing a red jacket during hunting season! Wearing clothes with muted colors is the best way to “blend” in with the natural world and still have some self-dignity. It’s better to avoid nylon, a material that when rubbed against itself makes a high frequency noise we cannot easily hear, but wildlife can.

Photographing Moose is a lot of fun! They are very interesting and intriguing members of our wild heritage. You have to travel north to find them, which in itself is exciting. The biggest Moose are in Alaska and northern Canada. They get progressively smaller as you go south. Big or small, male or female, Moose are some of the best wildlife photography you can focus in on. Head to Maine, Yellowstone, Jasper or Denali and treat yourself to what I consider one of wildlife photography’s challenges, capturing the great bull Moose shot. But if you get the great bull Moose shot, please don’t tell me about it, at least until I get one of my own!

Gray Ghost of the Forest

Reprinted from the BT Journal , Vol.3 Issue 3, August 1998

We’ve just rounded a curve in the road while heading into Canyon, Yellowstone Nat’l Park when out of the corner of my eye, I see this tall, gray form perched on a fallen pine limb on the edge of a clearing. I speed ahead, turn around and drive back, parking at the first pull out. I get out and assemble my F4 and 800f5.6, putting it atop my trusty Gitzo and hustle back to where I’d seen the gray form. It’s late in the day, the last rays of light casting their warm glow on the region. I walk back to the clearing in time to see the Great Gray Owl as it stares back at me. I hurriedly set down my tripod and pointed my lens at the magnificent creature eyeing me when a big, smelly tourist bus stops right behind me, opening its doors for someone to yell out, “what d’ya see?” At that very moment I press the shutter release, exposing the first and only frame as the owl lifted off from its perch to sink deeper into its forested world.

For the rest of the week during our stay in Yellowstone, my family and I kept looking in that same clearing every evening for that owl. We walked the surrounding forest on a couple of days, but we never saw it again. We’ve gone back to Yellowstone many times over the years since that first encounter in 1990, but we’ve never seen the Great Gray Owl there again. Yet it’s that first encounter, standing there in the fumes of that bus that the gray ghost of the forest captured my imagination and fueled a life long passion.

It’s 1998 and the four of us stand in awe in the Blue Mountains of Oregon. Perched before us is a male Great Gray Owl on a lone snag. In a clearing amongst a stand of Douglas-fir a stone’s throw from its nest, we watch the male as it calls to its mate hidden up a draw, a deep, throaty call. It calls in a different, shorter hoot to its two young now branchlings amongst the downed timber around us. And it watches us now as we’ve entered its domain. It’s been an hour and a half, 18 rolls of film are in the shot pocket of my vest. The time has gone by way too fast, the encounter all too brief. We’ve just packed it in for the morning when it begins to sprinkle. It’s 24 May, and it’s a good day!

This is an opportunity I have been waiting for and working for a long time! On numerous occasions my good friend Michael Frye has tried to help me photograph these magnificent owls in Yosemite Nat’l Park where all I was able to do was enjoy seeing them fly by. This was the fourth year I had made contact with the biologists working with these owls in Oregon. The previous three years, there had simply been too much rain for me to gamble on the long journey paying off with photographs. The rain had hurt the nesting success so much that I didn’t want to add to the owl’s problems. But this year there were three active nests and we had a window of four days, so off we went. Like so many of our fortunate encounters, this was an experience of a lifetime, being face to face with those big yellow eyes and massive gray facial disk in the serenity of the forest. This is also an experience you too can be a part of, capturing the gray ghost of the forest on film.

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Basic Biology

The Great Gray Owl can be found in many parts of North America, making it extremely accessible to thousands upon thousands of photographers. They breed in North America from central Alaska, northern Yukon, northwestern and central MacKenzie, northern Manitoba, and northern Ontario south locally in the interior along the Cascades and Sierra Nevada to central California; in the Rockies from northern Idaho and Montana to western Wyoming; and to central Alberta, central Saskatchewan, southern Manitoba, northern Minnesota, and south-central Ontario.

They are physically the largest owl in North America. Males have a wing span of 410-447mm and females 430-465mm. Males have a length of 300-323mm and females 310-347mm. Males weigh an average of 936grams and females 1237grams! In comparison, your basic warbler is 7-10 grams. Their coloration though is as basic as they come, gray all over. Yes, there are shades of gray from dark to light, but they’re called great gray for a reason, size and color. To see them fly, the first thing that impresses you is their wing size with their long, broad graceful sail-like wings catching air underneath their plumes.

Their nesting biology is rather straight forward for an owl. The Great Gray Owl does not make its own nest, but rather uses abandoned nests of other raptors especially of the Northern Goshawk. They typically make their nests atop broken snags as well. Owls have a specific nesting biology with their own terms. When the chicks are born, they are called nestlings. At about four weeks old, the nestlings still covered with down and a hint of emerging feathers, leave the nest in a controlled crash to the ground. They then become what is called branchlings. The young scurry about the ground, along downed trees and walk up branches to get fed which is where the term branchling comes from. They stay around the nest area during this time. They become fledglings and start moving out of the nesting territory at a couple of months old. Spring Creek Ecology

The nesting Great Gray Owls of Spring Creek, Blue Mountains Oregon were discovered in 1982. What makes this unique is the area was logged in the 1970′s. The typical habitat for Great Grays is old to virgin forests. What makes Spring Creek truly special in regards to Great Grays is the nesting density of the owls. There are at least eight pairs of Great Grays nesting in a four square mile area! This is a special population also because they have successfully nested every year accept for one since 1982. Great Grays typically nest successfully in a direct relationship to the prey base which for some reason does not come into play with this population as dramatically as with other owl populations.

The logging in the 1970′s created an open, patchwork habitat of tree stands and meadows. These “park-like” stands of Ponderosa Pine with islands of denser stands of Douglas-fir is ideal habitat for the Great Grays. They hunt in the more open Ponderosa Pines and nest in the denser Douglas-fir. The reason they prefer the denser Douglas-fir is the protection it provides for their young from predators such as Great Horned Owls and Northern Goshawks. Certain hilltops and ridges have Forest Service signs signifying they are old stands of Old Growth forest, small islands saved from the ax. But as you travel through the area, the richness of the forest is stunning, the diversity inspiring!

The Great Grays begin courtship in the Spring Creek area during February. The Great Grays are quite vocal during this time. Their calling occurs mostly at night and can be heard as a series of low “whoos.” Owls have a very complex vocabulary which we are only starting to understand, but they have at least 40 different “hoots.” For example, the female’s food begging call, part of courtship consists of a soft two-note “whoo-up.” Incubation starts from mid-March to early April and lasts 30 days. The Great Gray during this time is very hard to find and don’t make a hoot. The female has incubation duty, the male providing her with food while she sits on the eggs. The female also broods the young once they hatch and are nestlings.

To help the Great Gray Owls, the Forest Service has a nesting platform program established in the Spring Creek area. With the loss of some natural nesting platforms (broken snags) from logging the artificial platforms help the owls while the process of nature creates platforms with time.

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Photographing the Owls

On our first afternoon, we head for the first known nesting site. We reach the site a few hours after the rain has stopped. We weave our way through the Douglas-fir grove towards the nesting tree. We are greeted by the call of a Douglas Tree Squirrel as it announces our presence in the forest. We cross fresh track and sign of Rocky Mountain Elk and see a few Mule Deer on the edge of the forest, watching us pass by. We walk a quarter of a mile and come in sight of the nesting platform. We set up our Kenko Pro Field 70 Spotting Scope and check out the nesting platform and surrounding trees, no one. I glass the surrounding forest and spot a Swainson’s Thrush busy foraging, but no owls. We’re too late; this pair has already raised their young and moved off from the nesting territory. We walk back through the forest, looking forward to the next day’s exploration.

The next morning after eating a scrambled egg breakfast in the warmth of our trailer, we head out for the second nest site. It rained during the night and the rain had just stopped and the sun had broken through the clouds as we left our campsite. He arrive on the dirt road heading up the ridge as the clouds start to pile back up, threatening to rain again. Off we set the four of us, my wife, two sons and myself through the forest to the second nest site. I knew the owl was there, I could feel it, but we get to the nesting platform to find nothing. We stop, set up our scope again and begin to look.

I move down the slope ten feet to clear some trees to see across the small clearing in front of us when I spot the male atop a snag across the way. Oh, what a magnificent bird! Our eyes make contact as I look at the male through the bins. I look at the owl, where it’s perched, the background, the foreground and a possible path I could use to walk up and get closer. I leave my wife with the bins and my boys with the scope to keep an eye on the male as I set up my F5 and 600f4. The light level is too low to add the 1.4x, the clouds had begun to come back. I set up as quickly as possible in case the owl took off. I check with my observation team to find the owl is still in the same place.

I ease down the slope towards the clearing and the owl on the other side. My team keeps a watch on the owls as I work my way towards it. The owl knows we’re here, there’s no hiding from those big eyes. I work my way slowly down the slope in plain view of the male, perched atop a dead snag. I watch its eyes and body for any movement suggesting I’m bothering it. At about eighty feet I stop and take my first images. Framing that incredible bird in my viewfinder has my heart racing, the thrill of so many years waiting up to this moment make it hard for me to hold still as I focus on the male. While the owl only fills 1 of the frame, those big, yellow eyes burn into my soul. With the owl’s obvious OK with my presence, I move closer and closer until I have a nearly full frame image. With the cloudy skies and the gray plumage, my F5′s autofocus has a hard time locking on, so I switch to manual focus. I’ve ripped off a couple of rolls of film when I hear the owl make a new hoot and within a couple of seconds it defecates. A voice comes over the radio, my wife telling me it’s defecating, alerting me that it’s about to take flight. Fly it does, about fifty feet to the left to a large branch on a live Douglas-fir.

As the owl takes to the air, those giant wings beat without any effort. The owl seemed to leave just because it felt like moving, giving no sign of being upset by my approach. In fact, by this point in time, my entire family had joined me where I was photographing the owl, all enjoying the experience of being so close to such a magnificent creature. From its new perch, the male hoots, calling to its mate hidden up the draw whom we assume is hunting. I move slowly towards where the male is now perched and within little time, I’m thirty feet away from it. Just as I focus on the owl, the sun comes out shinning a magical beam on the owl. My eye loves the beauty in front of me, my film is screaming in pain.

I can see those big, yellow deep eyes perfectly. But the shadows created by those deep eyes now caused by the sun, darken the eyes so the film can’t see them. The yellow has no sparkle, no life, a problem I hadn’t thought about until I see it through my viewfinder. Where I was hoping for sun to come out to make magic, now I can’t wait until the cloud covers it back up again. I still fire off a couple of rolls and have my oldest son over who has now attached his camera body to my 600mm and is photographing the owl. He just finished his second roll when the owl moves again, this time flying just ten feet to the right, to the top of a broken off snag. This is the photo on the cover of the Journal, a magical moment which didn’t last long. I had taken maybe twenty frames when the male takes flight, this time going up the slope and out of my view. My wife and youngest son radio they have the male in sight. My son and I turn around to go back to the clearing to see we’re being watched!

Totally unknown to us, a branchling had worked its way down the slope and atop a branch right behind us. We knew of a branchling that had popped up way up the slope behind us, but this was a new little guy. Now I knew why the male was moving about; it was staying in a place where it could keep both branchlings in constant view. They are very protective of their young, not hesitating for a second for example, to drive a person into the ground if too close to one of their young. We move cautiously away from the branchling, my wife watching the male to make sure we don’t upset it. We walk around so the branchling is frontlit, grab a few frames of it and then move away.

Already an hour and a half had flown by. The four of us walk back up the slope to where the male has perched and watch it for a few minutes has it starts to call with another new hoot. The skies get dark, too dark to shoot with no opportunity of light coming, so I decide to pack it in. I never spend more than two hours with a nesting bird anyway even when everything is going perfect and with the first sprinkles that reach my head, we leave. As we reach the top of the ridge and look back on the owls to say thanks, we see three sets of eyes staring into ours. The branchlings from their perches and the male from his, watch us as we fade over the ridge. We’re just getting back into the cab of the truck when it starts to really get wet.

We drive down the road to check out the third nest site on our way out. We locate the platform to see a set of yellow eyes staring down over the rim at us. We stay for only a moment to look at the owl before we leave the area altogether. What an incredibly, incredible morning!

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You Can Do It Too!

I first found out about this opportunity through contacting various researchers. I finally found and was put in contact with the lead researcher of these Great Gray Owls. But to my amazement, the information I was seeking is available to anyone in the public. In fact, the Forest Service will mail anyone a map taking them right to the nest sites! Here’s the info you need to make contact:

US Forest Service
La Grande Ranger District
3502 Hwy. 30
La Grande, OR 97850 541.963.7186

Before you get all excited about journeying to Oregon next season, reread what you just read. It took a few years before all the conditions were right before I made my first trip to this locale. I waited until I was sure I would make no impact on the owls. Even though the Forest Service provides maps to every active nest to anyone wanting to see them, I still firmly believe that no photograph is worth sacrificing the welfare of the subject!

I’m not the first person to photograph or write about these magnificent creatures at Spring Creek, nor will I be the last. When you write or call the Forest Service, they will provide you with a brochure on the owl and the area. The backside states an ethical guideline for observing and photographing the owl. We all need to do as these guidelines suggest and more to insure the welfare of the owls and our continuing ability to observe and photograph them in the future. Don’t ever forget that without wildlife, we have nothing to photograph.

Technical Second Thoughts

The overall gray of the Great Gray Owl is such that in low light or shade, the autofocus system cannot lock on. Manual focus or, M/A manual focus is required. As I learned firsthand, full sun can be a mixed blessing. While I’m able to use AF when the sun is out, the shadows on those deep eyes are a killer. The optimal situation would be very early morning or very late evening when the sun is very low to the horizon. At this low angle, the sun is able to shine directly into and light up those magnificent yellow eyes.

You best be a master of light, because flash ain’t going to work for you here! Someone is probably wondering why “Mr. Flash” didn’t simply put a flash on the lens by using the Really Right Stuff extender bar to put light in those eyes? The reason is really simple. Those giant eyes just don’t work with flash, I’ve seen it tried. The other reason is physical. Moving about the forest with that big bracket while trying to maneuver through branches is difficult at best. Also trying to get a clear shot through the branches with the lens is difficult enough without trying to also align the flash. Photographing Great Grays requires you to be a master of light, no ifs, ands or buts about it!

If you head for our web site, you’ll see that first, blurry image I took of the Great Gray Owl in Yellowstone. Too awful to waist precious Journal page space, but I want you to see what lit my passion for these beautiful creatures. Success photographically doesn’t necessarily come with the first frame or first encounter with a subject. But quite often, the first encounter can start a lifelong quest for either that subject, family, photograph, perfection or desire to be the best. The magic of wildlife photography comes in many forms, the rewards from an incredible array of possibilities. Follow your passion, seek to perfect your craft and chase that impossible subject. You will find the rewards your photography can bring to you!

Further Reading References

The Great Gray Owl – Phantom of the Northern Fores t by Robert W. Nero, ISBN#0-87474-672-8
North American Owl – Biology and Natural History by Paul A. Johnsgard, ISBN#0-87474-560-8

The Art of Sitting

Reprinted from the BT Journal, Vol.1 Issue 4, August 1996

Getting close physically, that’s a motto I’ve advocated since I first started writing about wildlife photography. Just after my last safari to Yellowstone, a participant made the comment after hearing what I photographed after all had gone home, “You save all the good stuff for after we all leave.” Giving me a bad time as he always does, he brings up a good point.

What I had told him about was a photo op I had with a bull Moose. It started at sun up when I saw the Moose in the company of two others. It was too dark so I couldn’t shoot. In fact, I didn’t take any photos of the Moose until four and a half hours later! What many call patience, I refer to as a sheer love of just being out in the wild. What I do when I’m all alone going after an image is not a methodology I talk much about and rarely teach, it’s the art of sitting. It’s one of the best ways I know of getting close physically to my subject. Sitting takes more than just having a butt to sit on (I should know since I don’t have much of one), but a state of mind and equipment to be successful.

Whether in a national park setting or out in the wild blue yonder, getting close to wildlife requires understanding basic biology. In a nutshell, wildlife tends to get closest when they approach us on their own terms rather than our trying to approach them. Case in point: my bull Moose in Yellowstone (I can’t figure out why, but I tend to gravitate towards Moose.)

We had photographed the three bull Moose earlier in the week. They had first been spotted by a group of tourists on the road to Mt. Washburn. Seeing the tourists, then the poor Moose they were chasing and the direction the Moose were heading, I turned our vehicle around and went to the Cascade Lake picnic area. There we set up our equipment and waited for the Moose to walk to us. They did just that, but they were still being followed by the tourists from the road. Their own personal space being crowded by the tourists, the Moose were pushed right out of the meadow and right past where we were standing. We did get some nice shots, but our time with the Moose was only a few minutes when it should have been much, much longer.

When I saw the bull Moose down on the lower end of Cascade Creek (near the road) a few days later after all my participants had left, I drove up to Cascade Lake trail and waited. From the experience of a few days prior, I knew the Moose meander up and down Cascade Creek through the meadow. One would eventually find his way up to where I was sitting. The question was, would he show up when the light was still nice and be lit in a flattering way?

Where to be “sitting” while waiting for the Moose to arrive? Well, the first consideration was the lighting. Being as dark as the Moose’s pelt was, I wanted front lighting on him. I also wanted a background that would help make the Moose pop in the photograph as well as communicate the world in which he lives. I was shooting with an F5 and 600f4 AF-I lens. The equipment I had played a key role in deciding where I would place myself.

The lens in use always dictates where I position myself. My motto in full says, “Get close physically and use optics to isolate.” Now typically I like shooting big game with a 300f2.8, but as I was shooting with the F5 and wanted to maintain the fastest possible autofocus, I went with the 600mm. (I was also hoping to find a Great Gray Owl while I was sitting for which the 600mm and 1.4x would have been perfect.) The 600mm’s narrow angle of view did allow me to be very selective of my background. So I set up accordingly, hoping that my prediction of where the Moose would show up would be correct.

Keeping lighting in mind, I also needed to place myself in a location where I wasn’t sticking out like a sore thumb. As I had my wife and two boys with me, our “hiding” place needed to conceal us all. I didn’t set up a blind or build a tree lodge to hide us. All we did was stand in the shadow of a small grove of Lodgepole Pines. None of us were wearing bright clothes, never do. Being in the shadow and standing, we took on the benign appearance of being part of the grove. Another real concern in our “concealment” was the fact we were in grizzly country. The trail we were on had just been posted as being frequented by griz. Being quiet is the last thing you want to do in griz country and you especially don’t want to surprise them. I took comfort in the fact that we were in the company of an old, bull Bison. He just grazed around us, sharing his flies with us some of the time (what a nice guy).

So there we stood. Now this is when many think, “you must have lots of patience!” Patience really has nothing to do with just sitting and waiting as far as I’m concerned. The time actually flew. While we stood there waiting, a bachelor herd of Mule Deer bucks came ambling through the meadow, grazing as they strolled by (great photo op). Gray Jays, one of our favorite birds, constantly kept checking us out for handouts (wonder where they learned that bad habit from, hmm…?). Various other forms of wildlife constantly ventured into the meadow to do their thing. This was a positive sign that our presence was not upsetting the nature of things. And finally, I was constantly on the lookout for the Great Gray Owl, a subject that eluded my F5 that week.

After four and a half hours, the bull Moose walked through the trees right at us. It nibbled on grasses as it strolled up towards us. It had come out of the trees a little to the east of where I had figured, so I had to move towards the east to get the lighting I wanted. In the process of moving east, the Moose moved into this gorgeous setting of shadow and sun and stopped. There it stood looking at us as if to say, “I’ve never seen you in my meadow before.”

Roll after roll of film went flying as the shot kept getting better and better. I started with the TC-14e 1.4x on the 600mm, but soon had that off as the bull had moved in quite close to us. We made sure to keep our distance from the bull (I have a lot of respect for those front legs). But the Moose didn’t care we were there for he just kept coming closer. At one point, he posed, providing me with my best shot yet of a bull Moose (possibly a cover for my upcoming book).

Then, out of the trees behind us came a crash! The bull Moose instantly stood at attention, ears forward. My wife had been watching our backs the entire time and called out when she saw Mule Deer bucks come running through the forest. I turned to see the bucks and then turned back to see the butt of my bull Moose move quickly off into the forest from whence it came. That was it, all over! Of course, we didn’t stick around to see what had caused the Mule Deer bucks to run, we left the meadow at a quick pace ourselves!

The point being, meeting wildlife on their own terms most often rewards us with the great photographs. Getting the big payoff for sitting and waiting comes from more than just having patience. You have to understand basic biology, in this case, knowing the Moose would walk back up the creek. You have to understand how to apply biology with technology, in this case, where to be positioned for the best lighting and angle of view for the lens in use. And most importantly, be able to become part of the scene and not stick out like a sore thumb.

I know many photographers who cannot sit for longer than a minute. There is nothing wrong with that and in fact, they probably produce more photographs than I with that style. But I like sitting back and taking it all in. In the four plus hours we stood in that meadow, I photographed the old Bison bull grazing, dust bathing, backlit with flies buzzing all about him; I photographed the Mule Deer bucks, the Gray Jays, chipmunks, and the bull Moose. For us, we were rewarded with not only being a part of the meadow to witness the passing of these creatures’ morning, but also with photographs that we can use to communicate what we saw to others. The art of sitting, like other arts, isn’t for everyone. But the rewards are greater than you can imagine!

Photographing Hovering Birds

Capturing hovering birds on film is one of the funniest pastimes in wildlife photography. On my recent trip to Churchill, Canada, I had the opportunities of a lifetime to practice and capture incredible images while having loads of fun. Every time I ventured out with my camera, I learned new, better and more creative ways to shoot. A big part of this learning came from shooting with my good friend, Arthur Morris, truly a master of photographing birds. I want to share with you what I learned so you might also learn and better enjoy capturing hovering birds.

Focusing

Those who have read my previous writings know I’m a manual focus kind of guy. At Churchill, I used three different setups for photographing flying birds, two manual and one autofocus. The setups were the F4e and 75-300 AF, F4e and 800f5.6 and Canon A2 and 400f5.6 Ultrasonic (head for Moose’s Camera Bag to see and understand what equipment he used today). I was able to get the same number of in-focus photographs with each system, but not the same quantity or with the same ease.

The F4 has never been regarded as a fast AF system and it isn’t. Its bright, 100% viewfinder though is great for manual focus. When used with the 800f5.6 for panning (to be covered in the next issue of the Journal) all the time, basically 90% of my flight shots came out tack sharp. The drawback though is its inflexibility. This is a system that is forever connected to the tripod. This limits my actions, so only birds that are flying basically parallel with the height of my lens can be successfully photographed. Birds directly overhead (some of the best light) just can’t be photographed. So flybys can be easily captured, but that’s shooting with your shutter release finger tied behind your back.

So to obtain mobility in capturing overhead flying birds, I switched to my 75-300. This sharp and lightweight lens does a great job of manually focusing on flying birds. In Churchill where birds are so close and in big flights, the 300mm focal length does an adequate job. But for the shy birds or flybys out in the marsh where they come out of nowhere, the 300mm is just too short. Now this setup used in autofocus mode works OK once locked on (something remedied with the F5). But that time delay in locking on the subject can be some of the best shots-lost. You must remember that with the F4 and N90s (but not the F5), you’re locked into having the subject centered when using autofocus. (This typically sucks compositionally!)

This brings me to the toy lens (as Artie calls it), the Canon 400f5.6 Ultrasonic. When it comes to birds in flight, you won’t find a better combo than the A2 and 400f5.6 (except for adding the EOS1n). The first big advantage is physical weight; there simply isn’t anything that hinders your actions with this system. Even the most inexperienced can swing up this system and get the bird in the viewfinder and in focus. Simply put, this combo was fast enough to capture everything I framed! And lastly, the A2 with its five AF sensors allows the photographer to compositionally place the subject while using autofocus. I don’t think you can find a better system at the moment for flying birds. There isn’t a place a bird can fly to escape this setup. (Sorry, I like this system a lot but not enough to switch to Canon. The F5 also makes a big difference and slight change in my plans concerning autofocus.)

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Light

There’s no question that light is essential in good flight photographs. Actually more than any other photography, flight photography needs a certain quality and quantity of light. It can be summed up in just two words: blue skies.

Why are blue skies optimum? The vast majority of the time our subject is above us. When shooting a light colored bird such as a gull or tern against white, cloudy skies, the bird doesn’t pop (among other things). The subject, especially its primary feathers, blend in with the background. This is true for dark birds against dark, cloudy skies as well. And dark birds against white skies, I dread the thought! Properly exposing for any of this creates a nightmare as well as overexposed skies. Yuck!

Blue skies provide us with a background that makes the subject pop no matter if the subject is light or dark. Blue is also a great background because no matter how we expose for the subject, it looks good. Exposing for a light subject, the blue is overexposed, darkening it creating a deeper blue. Exposing for a dark subject against a blue sky, the sky is underexposed creating a light blue sky. But in either case, whether the blue is light or dark, it’s a blue everybody can relate to. There is no one blue we all think of for blue sky, any shade of blue is acceptable.

Exposure

This brings us to exposure. This varies according to which system one is using, Nikon or Canon (and this changes with the F5). Keep in mind this info is in generalities and not carved in granite. There are a number of variables that could affect your results. For example, I rate my Agfa RSX 100 at 125 ISO slightly changing how “I” expose. Using the Canon EOS1n vs. the A2, there is also slight differences in the evaluative metering. The EOS1n is more sensitive to dark subjects and in some situations is right on while in others, it acts more like a spot meter opening up too much for dark subjects. The A2 only has 1/2 stop increments while the EOS1n has 1/3 stops. With all these examples, the subject fills at least half of the frame. Any larger doesn’t really change things, any smaller does which I’m not covering here. With all that in mind, let’s trudge foreword.

With the Nikon system, matrix metering with blue skies is pretty cut and dry (will be with the F5 as well). I point my camera up to what appears to be a middle tone blue and meter. A middle tone blue is not the lightest blue at the horizon or the darkest blue directly overhead, but at a point in between. I want my meter to give me a basic daylight exposure for this blue. So I dial in the exposure compensation needed to reach basic daylight and shoot away. Once this is done, whether a light or dark subject comes into the frame, the meter provides the correct exposure.

The Canon system is only a tad more complicated to understand. Nothing one can’t master in a relatively short time. Using the A2 and evaluative metering while shooting against a blue sky, for a white subject, dial in minus 1/2 stop and for a dark subject, leave set at zero. On a bright but slightly hazy, cloudy day, a white subject can be shot at zero or plus 1/3 (dialed in via the ISO setting) and a dark subject at zero. The Canon system opens up nicely for dark subjects, especially the EOS1n. But with Canon or Nikon, always watch what the meter is telling you.

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Framing

Photographing hovering birds, physical movement though being frozen in space must be communicated in the viewer’s mind. How can we do this when basically there is nothing in the frame that is blurred, the wings frozen in mid-beat? There are a couple of things to keep in mind.

The main thing is the well known fact that birds fly. Having them in a clear blue sky, the viewer of the image knows the bird is flying. The second thing is positioning of the subject in the frame. We want to provide our subject with enough room in the frame to continue on its path mentally.

This means that the subject’s tail is closer than its head to the edge of the frame. If possible, we want to provide a space for the subject to fly into in the frame mentally. Now this for many means shooting the flying bird in a horizontal format. While this works perfectly for “flying” birds, I suggest you try shooting vertically for hovering birds. While the subject might be a tad smaller in the frame, this format does give the photograph a new sense of drama. “Is the bird ringing up or diving down” is what the viewer of the photograph will ask themselves.

The Secret!

If I learned anything in Churchill, I learned this: to capture spectacular birds in flight photographs, you want the wind blowing away from the direction of the sun. This means the birds are flying against the wind into the light. This slows them down or makes them hover, perfect conditions for shooting. And with them heading into the sun, the sun on your back, the lighting is perfect. This makes for really easy, fun and successful shooting.

Since my return home from Churchill, I’ve put all I’ve learned into practice on many occasions. The magic I learned there works just fine down here I’m happy to say.

Safely & Successfully Photographing Birds at the Nest

Reprinted from the BT Journal, Vol.1 Issue 2, May 1996

Spring is in the Air!

Spring has to be one of my favorite times of the year (but my nose hates it!). After I get through sneezing and my eyes stop watering, I take off for the shrubs and trees. I don’t set out to do any macro work, but to find nesting birds. Nothing charges my rockets like photographing nesting birds. I like the images I take and all that rot, but what I really enjoy the most is the opportunity to spend “quality” time with a wild creature.

Photographing nesting birds, no matter the species, can be done by anyone. There are only a few rules (I hate rules, but these are important) you need to remember:

• No photograph is worth sacrificing the welfare of the subject!
• Never have the parents off the nest for more than twenty minutes!
• Have Fun!

To get you thinking about nesting season, or better yet, get you out and doing it, I want to print some excerpts from chapter 1, vol.II of Moose Peterson’s Guide to Wildlife Photography (to give some of you a sample of what’s to come). The entire chapter deals with photographing nesting birds-cup, cavity or ledge nesters. There’s no reason why anyone can’t do it safely and productively. Here are some guidelines to get you started in what I think is one of the most enjoyable aspects of our profession.

Finding the Nest – Pre-Field Homework

When it comes to photographing a nesting bird, the first place to start is in books. I’ve always thought that’s what winters are good for, staying in at night and prepping for the coming spring shoots. You might find all the prep I do before going out in the field a bit much. But I’ve yet to have a nest fail (knock on wood!) which I attribute to my actions and the homework I do before entering the field. That zero failure rate is more important to me than getting the photographs! I tend to work mainly with endangered species where there’s no room for the slightest error. But even with common species, there’s still no room or reason for errors. This is especially true for your first shoot at a nest, if you do your homework first!

The first things to discover about the species you want to photograph is the time of year it nests. Many believe that just because it’s spring, nesting birds abound. In grand generalities this is true. But in specifics, it’s way off. For example, Great Horned Owls tend to nest very early, in the latter part of winter. That’s because they don’t make their own nests, but use inactive hawk nests from previous years. They nest early because hawks reuse their old nests and don’t take kindly to finding an owl in their home! Hummingbirds are another early bird (sorry, bad pun!). They can be sitting on eggs before New Year’s in many regions of the country. Clark’s Nutcrackers nest in the dead of winter in the high country. So don’t assume the nesting time or you could be left holding an empty nest (figuratively speaking, of course).

Researching and uncovering the answers to these questions can be frustrating. In many instances, little has actually been published on a species’ nesting biology. True, some species’ nesting biology is understood in great detail. But for many common nesters, there are no published details about their biology. Finding out what is known takes a little detective work.

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top of page

Published Resources

There are a number of great resources out there where you can start your sleuthing. A good starting point is bird identification books. These provide one key piece of information, the species’ Latin name. This is quite often needed later in extracting information from scientific sources. Bird identification books also provide range maps. In a quick glance, these provide a rough idea of geographically where a species nests. The written account for a species often provides further insight about the nesting biology. The two bird identification books I find indispensable are The Peterson Field Guides (either the Eastern or Western guide to birds depending on your locale) and the National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America. (These should already be a part of your personal library!)

Another resource to check out while at the library (sorry, bad pun again) are books. If your library is anything like mine, it has many old volumes, some pre-World War II. Though old, they often have lavish accounts on species. (You’ve hit gold if you find one pertaining to what you’re researching.) These often can solve all of your research needs as they contain incredible amounts of information. As it often turns out though, you might find one or two books that only mention your species in passing, but every little bit helps. (To avoid spending tons of my time in libraries, I started my own reference library in my office long ago which makes research a more pleasant task. If you’re serious about documenting lots of nesting birds, you might consider doing the same. There are a number of natural history mail-order book outlets which make finding titles simpler.)

The one type of library that’s sure to aid you in your information quest are research libraries. These are most often found at universities and museums of natural history. A great treasure chest of information awaits you there in scientific journals. The journals are typically published quarterly by different ornithological organizations. They contain a collection of papers written by scientists/biologists on a variety of topics in avian biology. Accessing the data you’re after is quickest by reading through the index that is published in the last journal of the year. Here’s where knowing the Latin name for the species you’re researching is invaluable. By searching the indexes for a number of years, papers on the species your researching can be obtained. The one drawback to research libraries is you’re typically not permitted to check out material.

You might be wondering if there is a definitive source for information. There is one book in my library I rely on constantly in the spring, A Field Guide to the Nests, Eggs and Nestlings of North American Birds by Colin Harrison. In this one volume, basic information for each species on nesting habitat and requirements, nest type, breeding season, eggs, incubation, nestling and nesting period are listed. (This is the general list of the information you need to find.) Now not every minute detail is available for every species, but it’s pretty darn close. The one drawback to the book is it generically covers all of North America. Some regional adjustments need to be calculated in for habitat and time of year of nesting for your locale.

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Then Comes Spring

In the spring, trees and shrubs have on their new wardrobes of green. Birds are returning from migration, filling the forests, meadows, grasslands and marshes with sound. Males are doing their best at alluring a mate with song after song. Most males also use their song to defend their territories from other males trying to do the same thing. These are your first clues that the nesting season has begun in earnest. It’s also time for your first step in finding an active nest.

Singing males mean there are females about. And where there’s two, well you know what happens (a clue: the birds and the bee thing). Be aware that in some species, males use more than song to attract a mate. Some species perform specialized flights, dances and parades, all in an attempt to impress the opposite sex. Swifts, terns, and shorebirds are just a few. Some species dance for a mate, such as, prairie chickens. Some even have very specialized means of drumming up a mate (bad pun again, sorry bad habit), such as, the Ruffed Grouse.

Finding Nest Building

Observing birds with nesting material is the quickest way I know of finding a nest. Now this can vary some so when doing your homework, determine the principle material used in nest construction. For example, hummingbirds collect spider webs by wrapping them around their bill. Birds of prey often collect dead twigs and branches and just before laying eggs, they collect green boughs. Song birds often use the natural down of cottonwoods or thistles to line their nests. Observing birds gathering, perching or flying with these materials are signals that nest building is in progress.

Using binoculars, observe where the bird is taking its nesting material. Now if it’s a bird of prey, the nest will be rather obvious. It’s very size and placement high in the tops of open trees or cliffs make them relatively easy to find. On the other hand if it’s a hummingbird, it can be the proverbial needle in a haystack. Narrowing down the search area from an entire forest, to a corner, to a group of shrubs, to just a shrub and then finally to a branch, is a chore. It’s a chore that’s lots of fun, but one that must be done with the utmost care!

Care must be observed when approaching a nest! All preliminary inspections should be done with binoculars and not the feet. The reasons are many, the main one being natural predators. Foxes, raccoons, skunks and domestic animals all tend to follow the scent of man. Your actions can lead one of these predators right to the nest. Remember one very important fact. You depend on the welfare and success of that nest! All your efforts in researching, discovering and photographing a nest can be washed down the tubes in a matter of seconds because of a careless act. Not only will all your efforts be wasted, but more importantly, a generation of birds can be lost! If after all this work, you cannot go to the nest without leading a predator to it, walk away to photograph the bird another day!

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First Trip to the Nest

When you believe the pair is on eggs, make plans for your first physical inspection of the nest site. Give the pair a couple of days buffer from when you believe they first started incubating before making your first visit. Now I’m assuming you found the nest from all the birds’ activities. But what if you haven’t, this first visit could be hazardous for the birds.

First of all, take care in the path you walk to the nest. Use large, high steps to avoid beating a path to the nest. We don’t have a firm understanding of how birds select their nesting sites. It’s not unreasonable to believe that the foliage surrounding the nesting site is as important as the actual bush or tree they’ve selected. If there are any large downed trees you must cross to get to the nest, take care not to break off any branches. And if there are branches extending into the nesting bush itself, take great care not to step on them. You could adversely affect the nest by tearing at branches attached to the nest.

Every time you take a step towards the nest, watch to see if the birds flush. They can fly out in any direction from the nest, so keep a keen eye out. You shouldn’t have any camera equipment with you at this time, just binoculars. Proceed cautiously and carefully, especially if you aren’t sure of the exact location of the nest. If you get to the shrub or tree and no birds are observed flushing, you’re doing great. If a bird did flush, hold still and wait twenty minutes. If they don’t come back in that time, leave the area and watch with binoculars. If it takes them five or ten minutes to come back to the nest after you’ve left, find another nest as this pair is too sensitive to tolerate your presence. If they come right back after you’ve left, you’re probably going to be OK.

You’ve successfully approached the bush, now how do you find that nest? The best method is to use just your eyes. Position yourself if possible so the bush/tree is backlit with the light shinning through its branches. This reveals the location of the nest by silhouetting it, its size and shape, making it stand out from all the branches. By slowly moving up, down and sideways, you might be able to find its location without physically touching the bush.

Preparing for the First Shoot at the Nest

Here it is, the exciting day you’ve earned with all of your diligent efforts. Now’s not the time to lose your cool and go off half cocked. (Get it, film advance? Ha, it’s a joke.) You want to head off to the nest with a song in your heart and checklist in your head. You need either a physical or mental check list of all the equipment you’ll need at the nest. You need to arrive at the nest site ready to go. Once at the nest, you’ll need to stay put until it’s time to go home. You don’t want to make a couple of trips back and forth from the nest to gather all needed equipment. You want to be able to work lightly and quickly. What follows is my checklist of equipment for a basic nest setup.

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Nest Site Equipment Checklist

• Camera bodies (most often two)
• Tripod lens for photographing the nest
• Cable release (min 10′ long)
• M acro lens
• C hair
• F ilm (min five rolls per session)
• W ater / munchies
• F lash(s)
• M icro-cassette recorder
• E xternal battery packs for flash
• H at (if required by sun)
• A ll needed flash cords
• B ranch clips
• F lash bracket
• Rubber bands
• B inoculars

You want to assemble your equipment away from the nest. This means not only having film in the camera and the camera turned on, but also having it mounted to the tripod and flashes in place. This also means having all cords attached and ready at hand, plus the ties for the branches readily accessible. The last thing you want to do at the nest is take time assembling your equipment and gathering yourself. Not going in ready not only limits your productive time at the nest, but also creates unnecessary busyness which can keep the parents away. You want to travel light and work fast when photographing a nest. This means having a battle plan for dealing with the branches and your lighting all ready thought out.

Holding the branches back out of the way for photography can be a little tricky. You obviously can’t hold them with your hands the whole time. You cannot cut them away either, right? For my method, I utilize some homemade devices made out of heavy duty binder clips (obtainable at office suppliers). I attach a heavy cord connecting two small clips which I can use to tie back a group of leaves or twigs. I can either clip the two clips together to form a circle or safely clip them to a branch without injury to the plant. I have the medium and large sizes set up in the same fashion, but I also carry single binder clips. I use these to hold back just one branch if needed.

Setting these up the first time at the nest takes time (referring to minutes rather than seconds here), but after that visit, it’s a snap. The first time takes so long because you must use such care when moving those branches for the first time. Remember, they could very easily be attached to the nest itself. Pulling on the wrong branch or twig could upset the nest and its contents. It takes a few minutes to unravel the maze of twigs around the nest, but it can and must be done carefully without any harm to the nest. (Remember when you leave, you must put back all the branches, twigs, and leaves just the way you found them to protect the nest. When you remove the clips and ties, ease everything back into place. Do not let the branches snap back into place because this could upset the nest!)

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First Sitting at the Nest

As soon as you’ve reached the nest site and the adults leave the nest, the clock is ticking. Your activities should not keep the adults off the nest for more than TWENTY MINUTES! If the adults don’t come back to the nest after twenty minutes, pull yourself out but leave your equipment. Pull back to a distance from where you previously observed the nest with binoculars and watch the nest. If within the next five minutes, the adults come back, great. If not, go get your equipment and pull it all out including any branch ties. (Take care of the path you’re creating this whole time.) We have few scenarios to work through now. Obviously if the adults came in, then skip down a few paragraphs.

If you leave the nest with your equipment still set up and the adults come back in five minutes, you have a couple of options. Whatever you do, you need to wait a while. The parents need time to tend to the eggs which they just came back to incubate. They should have at least fifteen minutes to secure the eggs’ temperature and any turning of them that is required. After this time, you can slowly approach your gear. The birds will probably flush again, but hopefully return within twenty minutes. If that’s the case, you’re in like Flynn!

Now if they don’t return again, attach a cable release to the camera and move back ten feet from the camera. Remember you need to be holding still during all of this. You can’t dance about from nervousness, being cold or needing to go to the bathroom (that sure can make one dance). Once you’ve moved back ten feet and the adults come back in five minutes, good. If they don’t, move back to your previous position and watch. When they come back to the nest, provide them with the appropriate time then walk back to the ten foot mark. If they stay at this distance, do some remote shooting and try getting to your camera the next trip to the nest. If at this attempt the adults leave and don’t come back in twenty minutes, go get your camera gear and try again the next day.

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You’re There!

Wow, you’ve made it to the nest and you’re sitting with camera and flash on, waiting to take that first photograph. The first time the adult returns to the nest, don’t fry its feathers with a blast of flash! Take a deep breath and soak in the moment; you’re sitting next to a wild creature, sharing a very important time together. You’ve probably had to work hard to get to this point, so did the birds. Just sit for a while and take in all that’s happening.

I can almost guarantee that the first time you do fire that camera, the birds will flush. It’s not so much the light from the flash that bothers them as much as it is the noise of all the operations. They will come back, and within literally a few frames, ignore the whole picture taking process. But in the beginning, take it slow. You’ll always have to remain calm, making all movements very slowly and smoothly. This is especially true for focusing the lens. Hand movement around the lens barrel tends to make most birds nervous.

Observations of the parents made on the first visit to the nest now become invaluable. Sitting at the nest, you tend to grow blinders to the many things going on about you. The direction from which the parents come and go to the nest and the duration of their absences are all important factors to your photography. These are things you should have learned from your preliminary visits to the nest. When the adults leave the nest, for whatever reason, it’s important to be aware of how and when they come back. During their returns to the nest, it will be like the first time every time. They’ll watch you like a hawk (oh sorry, another of those bad puns)! Any movement you make, will possibly cause them to stay away from the nest that much longer. Since you only want to stay at a nest site for a couple of hours Amax, time away from the nest is photographs lost.

Now this is the abridged version, but it should give you a direction and the basics to begin photographing nesting birds.

Safely & Successfully Photographing Birds at the Nest

Reprinted from the BT Journal, Vol.1 Issue 2, May 1996

Spring is in the Air!

Spring has to be one of my favorite times of the year (but my nose hates it!). After I get through sneezing and my eyes stop watering, I take off for the shrubs and trees. I don’t set out to do any macro work, but to find nesting birds. Nothing charges my rockets like photographing nesting birds. I like the images I take and all that rot, but what I really enjoy the most is the opportunity to spend “quality” time with a wild creature.

Photographing nesting birds, no matter the species, can be done by anyone. There are only a few rules (I hate rules, but these are important) you need to remember:

• No photograph is worth sacrificing the welfare of the subject!
• Never have the parents off the nest for more than twenty minutes!
• Have Fun!

To get you thinking about nesting season, or better yet, get you out and doing it, I want to print some excerpts from chapter 1, vol.II of Moose Peterson’s Guide to Wildlife Photography (to give some of you a sample of what’s to come). The entire chapter deals with photographing nesting birds-cup, cavity or ledge nesters. There’s no reason why anyone can’t do it safely and productively. Here are some guidelines to get you started in what I think is one of the most enjoyable aspects of our profession.

Finding the Nest – Pre-Field Homework

When it comes to photographing a nesting bird, the first place to start is in books. I’ve always thought that’s what winters are good for, staying in at night and prepping for the coming spring shoots. You might find all the prep I do before going out in the field a bit much. But I’ve yet to have a nest fail (knock on wood!) which I attribute to my actions and the homework I do before entering the field. That zero failure rate is more important to me than getting the photographs! I tend to work mainly with endangered species where there’s no room for the slightest error. But even with common species, there’s still no room or reason for errors. This is especially true for your first shoot at a nest, if you do your homework first!

The first things to discover about the species you want to photograph is the time of year it nests. Many believe that just because it’s spring, nesting birds abound. In grand generalities this is true. But in specifics, it’s way off. For example, Great Horned Owls tend to nest very early, in the latter part of winter. That’s because they don’t make their own nests, but use inactive hawk nests from previous years. They nest early because hawks reuse their old nests and don’t take kindly to finding an owl in their home! Hummingbirds are another early bird (sorry, bad pun!). They can be sitting on eggs before New Year’s in many regions of the country. Clark’s Nutcrackers nest in the dead of winter in the high country. So don’t assume the nesting time or you could be left holding an empty nest (figuratively speaking, of course).

Researching and uncovering the answers to these questions can be frustrating. In many instances, little has actually been published on a species’ nesting biology. True, some species’ nesting biology is understood in great detail. But for many common nesters, there are no published details about their biology. Finding out what is known takes a little detective work.

---

top of page

Published Resources

There are a number of great resources out there where you can start your sleuthing. A good starting point is bird identification books. These provide one key piece of information, the species’ Latin name. This is quite often needed later in extracting information from scientific sources. Bird identification books also provide range maps. In a quick glance, these provide a rough idea of geographically where a species nests. The written account for a species often provides further insight about the nesting biology. The two bird identification books I find indispensable are The Peterson Field Guides (either the Eastern or Western guide to birds depending on your locale) and the National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America. (These should already be a part of your personal library!)

Another resource to check out while at the library (sorry, bad pun again) are books. If your library is anything like mine, it has many old volumes, some pre-World War II. Though old, they often have lavish accounts on species. (You’ve hit gold if you find one pertaining to what you’re researching.) These often can solve all of your research needs as they contain incredible amounts of information. As it often turns out though, you might find one or two books that only mention your species in passing, but every little bit helps. (To avoid spending tons of my time in libraries, I started my own reference library in my office long ago which makes research a more pleasant task. If you’re serious about documenting lots of nesting birds, you might consider doing the same. There are a number of natural history mail-order book outlets which make finding titles simpler.)

The one type of library that’s sure to aid you in your information quest are research libraries. These are most often found at universities and museums of natural history. A great treasure chest of information awaits you there in scientific journals. The journals are typically published quarterly by different ornithological organizations. They contain a collection of papers written by scientists/biologists on a variety of topics in avian biology. Accessing the data you’re after is quickest by reading through the index that is published in the last journal of the year. Here’s where knowing the Latin name for the species you’re researching is invaluable. By searching the indexes for a number of years, papers on the species your researching can be obtained. The one drawback to research libraries is you’re typically not permitted to check out material.

You might be wondering if there is a definitive source for information. There is one book in my library I rely on constantly in the spring, A Field Guide to the Nests, Eggs and Nestlings of North American Birds by Colin Harrison. In this one volume, basic information for each species on nesting habitat and requirements, nest type, breeding season, eggs, incubation, nestling and nesting period are listed. (This is the general list of the information you need to find.) Now not every minute detail is available for every species, but it’s pretty darn close. The one drawback to the book is it generically covers all of North America. Some regional adjustments need to be calculated in for habitat and time of year of nesting for your locale.

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top of page

Then Comes Spring

In the spring, trees and shrubs have on their new wardrobes of green. Birds are returning from migration, filling the forests, meadows, grasslands and marshes with sound. Males are doing their best at alluring a mate with song after song. Most males also use their song to defend their territories from other males trying to do the same thing. These are your first clues that the nesting season has begun in earnest. It’s also time for your first step in finding an active nest.

Singing males mean there are females about. And where there’s two, well you know what happens (a clue: the birds and the bee thing). Be aware that in some species, males use more than song to attract a mate. Some species perform specialized flights, dances and parades, all in an attempt to impress the opposite sex. Swifts, terns, and shorebirds are just a few. Some species dance for a mate, such as, prairie chickens. Some even have very specialized means of drumming up a mate (bad pun again, sorry bad habit), such as, the Ruffed Grouse.

Finding Nest Building

Observing birds with nesting material is the quickest way I know of finding a nest. Now this can vary some so when doing your homework, determine the principle material used in nest construction. For example, hummingbirds collect spider webs by wrapping them around their bill. Birds of prey often collect dead twigs and branches and just before laying eggs, they collect green boughs. Song birds often use the natural down of cottonwoods or thistles to line their nests. Observing birds gathering, perching or flying with these materials are signals that nest building is in progress.

Using binoculars, observe where the bird is taking its nesting material. Now if it’s a bird of prey, the nest will be rather obvious. It’s very size and placement high in the tops of open trees or cliffs make them relatively easy to find. On the other hand if it’s a hummingbird, it can be the proverbial needle in a haystack. Narrowing down the search area from an entire forest, to a corner, to a group of shrubs, to just a shrub and then finally to a branch, is a chore. It’s a chore that’s lots of fun, but one that must be done with the utmost care!

Care must be observed when approaching a nest! All preliminary inspections should be done with binoculars and not the feet. The reasons are many, the main one being natural predators. Foxes, raccoons, skunks and domestic animals all tend to follow the scent of man. Your actions can lead one of these predators right to the nest. Remember one very important fact. You depend on the welfare and success of that nest! All your efforts in researching, discovering and photographing a nest can be washed down the tubes in a matter of seconds because of a careless act. Not only will all your efforts be wasted, but more importantly, a generation of birds can be lost! If after all this work, you cannot go to the nest without leading a predator to it, walk away to photograph the bird another day!

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First Trip to the Nest

When you believe the pair is on eggs, make plans for your first physical inspection of the nest site. Give the pair a couple of days buffer from when you believe they first started incubating before making your first visit. Now I’m assuming you found the nest from all the birds’ activities. But what if you haven’t, this first visit could be hazardous for the birds.

First of all, take care in the path you walk to the nest. Use large, high steps to avoid beating a path to the nest. We don’t have a firm understanding of how birds select their nesting sites. It’s not unreasonable to believe that the foliage surrounding the nesting site is as important as the actual bush or tree they’ve selected. If there are any large downed trees you must cross to get to the nest, take care not to break off any branches. And if there are branches extending into the nesting bush itself, take great care not to step on them. You could adversely affect the nest by tearing at branches attached to the nest.

Every time you take a step towards the nest, watch to see if the birds flush. They can fly out in any direction from the nest, so keep a keen eye out. You shouldn’t have any camera equipment with you at this time, just binoculars. Proceed cautiously and carefully, especially if you aren’t sure of the exact location of the nest. If you get to the shrub or tree and no birds are observed flushing, you’re doing great. If a bird did flush, hold still and wait twenty minutes. If they don’t come back in that time, leave the area and watch with binoculars. If it takes them five or ten minutes to come back to the nest after you’ve left, find another nest as this pair is too sensitive to tolerate your presence. If they come right back after you’ve left, you’re probably going to be OK.

You’ve successfully approached the bush, now how do you find that nest? The best method is to use just your eyes. Position yourself if possible so the bush/tree is backlit with the light shinning through its branches. This reveals the location of the nest by silhouetting it, its size and shape, making it stand out from all the branches. By slowly moving up, down and sideways, you might be able to find its location without physically touching the bush.

Preparing for the First Shoot at the Nest

Here it is, the exciting day you’ve earned with all of your diligent efforts. Now’s not the time to lose your cool and go off half cocked. (Get it, film advance? Ha, it’s a joke.) You want to head off to the nest with a song in your heart and checklist in your head. You need either a physical or mental check list of all the equipment you’ll need at the nest. You need to arrive at the nest site ready to go. Once at the nest, you’ll need to stay put until it’s time to go home. You don’t want to make a couple of trips back and forth from the nest to gather all needed equipment. You want to be able to work lightly and quickly. What follows is my checklist of equipment for a basic nest setup.

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Nest Site Equipment Checklist

• Camera bodies (most often two)
• Tripod lens for photographing the nest
• Cable release (min 10′ long)
• M acro lens
• C hair
• F ilm (min five rolls per session)
• W ater / munchies
• F lash(s)
• M icro-cassette recorder
• E xternal battery packs for flash
• H at (if required by sun)
• A ll needed flash cords
• B ranch clips
• F lash bracket
• Rubber bands
• B inoculars

You want to assemble your equipment away from the nest. This means not only having film in the camera and the camera turned on, but also having it mounted to the tripod and flashes in place. This also means having all cords attached and ready at hand, plus the ties for the branches readily accessible. The last thing you want to do at the nest is take time assembling your equipment and gathering yourself. Not going in ready not only limits your productive time at the nest, but also creates unnecessary busyness which can keep the parents away. You want to travel light and work fast when photographing a nest. This means having a battle plan for dealing with the branches and your lighting all ready thought out.

Holding the branches back out of the way for photography can be a little tricky. You obviously can’t hold them with your hands the whole time. You cannot cut them away either, right? For my method, I utilize some homemade devices made out of heavy duty binder clips (obtainable at office suppliers). I attach a heavy cord connecting two small clips which I can use to tie back a group of leaves or twigs. I can either clip the two clips together to form a circle or safely clip them to a branch without injury to the plant. I have the medium and large sizes set up in the same fashion, but I also carry single binder clips. I use these to hold back just one branch if needed.

Setting these up the first time at the nest takes time (referring to minutes rather than seconds here), but after that visit, it’s a snap. The first time takes so long because you must use such care when moving those branches for the first time. Remember, they could very easily be attached to the nest itself. Pulling on the wrong branch or twig could upset the nest and its contents. It takes a few minutes to unravel the maze of twigs around the nest, but it can and must be done carefully without any harm to the nest. (Remember when you leave, you must put back all the branches, twigs, and leaves just the way you found them to protect the nest. When you remove the clips and ties, ease everything back into place. Do not let the branches snap back into place because this could upset the nest!)

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First Sitting at the Nest

As soon as you’ve reached the nest site and the adults leave the nest, the clock is ticking. Your activities should not keep the adults off the nest for more than TWENTY MINUTES! If the adults don’t come back to the nest after twenty minutes, pull yourself out but leave your equipment. Pull back to a distance from where you previously observed the nest with binoculars and watch the nest. If within the next five minutes, the adults come back, great. If not, go get your equipment and pull it all out including any branch ties. (Take care of the path you’re creating this whole time.) We have few scenarios to work through now. Obviously if the adults came in, then skip down a few paragraphs.

If you leave the nest with your equipment still set up and the adults come back in five minutes, you have a couple of options. Whatever you do, you need to wait a while. The parents need time to tend to the eggs which they just came back to incubate. They should have at least fifteen minutes to secure the eggs’ temperature and any turning of them that is required. After this time, you can slowly approach your gear. The birds will probably flush again, but hopefully return within twenty minutes. If that’s the case, you’re in like Flynn!

Now if they don’t return again, attach a cable release to the camera and move back ten feet from the camera. Remember you need to be holding still during all of this. You can’t dance about from nervousness, being cold or needing to go to the bathroom (that sure can make one dance). Once you’ve moved back ten feet and the adults come back in five minutes, good. If they don’t, move back to your previous position and watch. When they come back to the nest, provide them with the appropriate time then walk back to the ten foot mark. If they stay at this distance, do some remote shooting and try getting to your camera the next trip to the nest. If at this attempt the adults leave and don’t come back in twenty minutes, go get your camera gear and try again the next day.

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You’re There!

Wow, you’ve made it to the nest and you’re sitting with camera and flash on, waiting to take that first photograph. The first time the adult returns to the nest, don’t fry its feathers with a blast of flash! Take a deep breath and soak in the moment; you’re sitting next to a wild creature, sharing a very important time together. You’ve probably had to work hard to get to this point, so did the birds. Just sit for a while and take in all that’s happening.

I can almost guarantee that the first time you do fire that camera, the birds will flush. It’s not so much the light from the flash that bothers them as much as it is the noise of all the operations. They will come back, and within literally a few frames, ignore the whole picture taking process. But in the beginning, take it slow. You’ll always have to remain calm, making all movements very slowly and smoothly. This is especially true for focusing the lens. Hand movement around the lens barrel tends to make most birds nervous.

Observations of the parents made on the first visit to the nest now become invaluable. Sitting at the nest, you tend to grow blinders to the many things going on about you. The direction from which the parents come and go to the nest and the duration of their absences are all important factors to your photography. These are things you should have learned from your preliminary visits to the nest. When the adults leave the nest, for whatever reason, it’s important to be aware of how and when they come back. During their returns to the nest, it will be like the first time every time. They’ll watch you like a hawk (oh sorry, another of those bad puns)! Any movement you make, will possibly cause them to stay away from the nest that much longer. Since you only want to stay at a nest site for a couple of hours Amax, time away from the nest is photographs lost.

Now this is the abridged version, but it should give you a direction and the basics to begin photographing nesting birds.

Photographing Alaska’s Coastal Grizzly Bear

Reprint from Nov ’99 BT Journal

Note: You should not take the information here and then go find a grizzly bear to photograph. This information is provided so when you go with a guide such as myself, you are photographically prepared to capture the image.

Alaska has a number of big mammal species that I want to get to know better (and photograph) with the Grizzly Bear definitely at the top of that list. While science categorizes grizzlies into just a couple of species, with my limited exposure to them, I like to think of the grizzly a little differently than science does. This B News article is about the group of Alaskan Grizzlies that I think of as the coastal grizzly. These are the grizzlies that make their home in the coastal stretches along the Alaskan Range, the west side of Cook Inlet.

Now by no means am I going to pass myself off as a Grizzly Bear expert, having thousands of hours of observation time under my belt. What I have to offer you are insights that I’ve gathered after a couple of weeks of daily observation and photography of coastal grizzly bears. I was amongst two dozen individual Grizzly Bears and at times just feet away from them. I went on my adventure with all sorts of thoughts, stories and myths about grizzlies in my head, many the same ones you might have. But the experiences I had dashed the myths surrounding these magnificent creatures. It’s my hope to enlighten you about these gentle giants, enticing you to come to Alaska and experience for yourself the coastal grizzlies!

The “myth” I went to Alaska with that I think a lot of others have is that getting physically close to a grizzly is like courting death. When another photographer told me that his headshot of a grizzly was taken with an 80-200f2.8 lens, I was in awe, thinking that getting that close was living on the edge to say the least. Photographing grizzlies in socially uptight locales like Brooks Camp or McNeil River where there are lots of grizzlies in a small space, getting physically close is probably not a wise thing to do. There are too many “bear things” going on that we humans just can’t see or know about all the time. But in situations where grizzlies are doing grizzly things in wide open spaces without other “bear pressures”, getting physically close is not life threatening. In fact, being just a few feet from an 800lb sow and three cubs is one of the most exciting wildlife experiences this old photographer has ever done in his life!

Like all articles I’ve written where I’ve stressed understanding basic biology, photographing grizzlies more than any other species, depends on basic biological knowledge. Much of what I have to share with you I first read in biological reports, having the biology lessons reinforced by personal observation. I had a 900lb male griz run at me from more than one hundred yards out. He ended up passing by me still in a run by less than ten feet (yes, I was shooting the entire time). Being able to experience and distinguish that bear’s behavior as running and not charging was personally and photographically rewarding! But it’s that kind of basic biological understandings I’m stressing folks have so they experience the rewards of Grizzly Bear photography. (Please understand that photographers are seemingly killed each year by grizzly attacks, yet most of the time the fatalities are because of the photographer’s ignorance and not grizzly aggression.)

Coastal grizzlies have two main foraging strategies, grazing and fishing. Both of these strategies offer great bear viewing and photography. Understanding what you’re seeing and being able to capture the best possible photograph relies directly, in my opinion, on your knowledge of what you’re seeing in the viewfinder. Let this be the start of your bear lessons.

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The Grazers

Grizzly Bears emerge from their winter dens hungry. They have been living off their fat reserves for many months as they slept and they emerge in a mode to replace the fat they lost plus more. But they typically have at least forty-five days to wait until the first big salmon runs begin. While they might find carrion like a winter moose kill or washed up seal or possibly whale carcass, it’s not enough to sustain one grizzly let alone a whole population of grizzlies and their hungers for long. And if we’re talking about a sow nursing spring or second year cubs, there is an even more pressing need for immediate food. The grizzly has evolved amazingly to succeed through the eons not on these seemingly bare pickings but by foraging on the sedges of the sloughs and coastline until the salmon run (and still eating sedges after the runs have started). What boggles my mind is these gentle giants become giants on grass!

The sea of green sedges, covering many coastal beachhead stretches attracts bears from all over the region. The lush, new growth of these grasses, believe it or not, sustains the coastal grizzly (or as the locals call them, brown bears where as the interior bears they call grizzlies). In fact, they are even able to start putting on fat from this forage. At one of my favorite locales to photograph griz, Silver Salmon Creek, the grizzlies are like cattle on the flats, grazing on the grass as a treasured delicacy!
The spring light bathes the ocean of grass as the bears come out of the trees to graze. The scene is seemingly tranquil to us humans with the bears spaced out over the landscape, feeding. But there is an unspoken law of the land where the bears live, and survive by, that needs to be understood by us humans before we go further on in this story.

There is a hierarchy on the fields of sedge much the same as on the stream or slope. It can be summed up basically as the largest has the right of way. But there are a few caveats to this basic “king of the hill” structure that you, the bear observer and photographer, need to understand. While the biggest griz is most likely a large male or boar, there are times when it could be a female or sow. And when a sow shows up with cubs, even the biggest boars give them space. So a female with cubs sometimes supercedes the largest in size. The pecking order basically goes from the largest to the smallest with size typically being directly related to age, the older the bigger. And you know what they say about age, the older the wiser. I think this truly relates to the grizzly.

I bet you’ve heard the warning, “never get between a sow and her cubs.” This is generally a very good rule to go by. But getting in between them is not a guaranteed death sentence. I have a good friend who has been in this situation many times, and still walks to tell the tales. The little caveat to this myth is, if you’re between the sow and cubs and the cubs bawl, communicating that they feel threatened, the sow will crash through anything in the way to reach her cubs and make them feel safe. If you’re in the way, well, you’ll be flattened. But if the cubs go about their business and never bawl or express that they feel threatened, the sow will go about her business.
And there are times when you’re so close to a family group that the cubs will come right up to you. Cubs are naturally curious about the world around them, just as they are when they become full size bears. You need to understand that this curiosity is how bears survive, learning and finding new food sources amongst other things. When those cubs walk up to you, you need to avoid panicking! You must keep your wits about you, trying to keep from being placed between the curious cubs and their mom. You must keep the cubs from feeling menaced even though they approached you! Moving away from the cubs while talking to them softly as you move is what has been suggested to me as the best course of action when in this situation.

The sedges is one of the best places to first see and photograph spring cubs, which are without a doubt, the cutest and most entertaining creatures on this earth! Photographing the cubs takes a quick hand and sense of humor I think. A quick hand is necessary because cubs are busy little bundles of fur, bouncing about while learning about their world. The cubs that I got to watch were characters! One time while I was fly fishing, a sow with two cubs walked by on the creek bank. (I was fishing in the main channel of the creek.) The family was walking by, watching me while looking for salmon. The family led by the sow crossed a small creek flowing into the one I was fishing. The sow walked across first, followed by the first cub and then the second. As the second cub reached the center of the creek, a salmon must have hit it in the foot because that little cub jumped into the air, bawled and then flew the rest of the distance across the creek to the safety of its mother’s side! Oh, I wish I had a camera that moment! I was laughing so hard I lost the salmon I had on my line!

Typically it’s the dominant male cub that’s the most active it seems, off exploring a squirrel’s hole, playing with a salmon carcass or bouncing off the side of mom. That’s why I say you need to be quick at hand and have a sense of humor. Being quick, you’ll be able to follow the action. Having a sense of humor, you’ll be able to anticipate the action, sort of. While we camped in Denali Nat’l Park on another trip this year, we had to sleep in our vehicle one night and not in our tents because we were told that two cubs had taken a liking to bouncing off the sides of tents. They weren’t hurting anything, just bouncing off tents like they were trampolines!
When photographing the bears grazing, getting a tack sharp image can be a challenge. For one thing, they are tearing at the sedges like pulling out weeds, more than biting the sedges off at the roots like typical grazers. This action means their heads are constantly in motion. When you focus on the eye, as you should, the jaws and their powerful muscles are right below and in motion. Just after they tear the grass they have a mouthful of sedge, which they seem to then grind slightly in their jaws before swallowing. This causes their facial muscles to tremble as they chew. Photographing the bears while they’re eating and capturing a sharp image on a sunny morn or afternoon is a no brainer, but in typical low light situations in Alaska, this can be a real difficult scenario.

This is the reason I bought the 400f2.8 AFS. Being able to work in lower light is a whole lot easier with f2.8 not necessarily because of a faster shutter speed because as in the scenario I just described, in low light there isn’t a faster speed fast enough to stop the action. No, rather the “fast” lens permits me to be quick to follow the action as the lens can focus in the lower light and I can see more in the viewfinder. I did note though that in some situations with some of the bears with a near even coat, no lights or darks but all the same shade of color, in lower light situations, the F5 sometimes had a hard time finding focus. The lack of contrast was the problem.
When photographing the grazing bears, first you want to check the wind direction. Not that you have to make any adjustments, but you want to be aware of it because of the bears incredible smelling ability. We watched one bear perhaps half a mile away, down wind of us, run the entire half mile to a salmon carcass lying fifty yards in front of us. There is no way the bear could see the carcass, just us standing there, but it smelled the carcass at that distance and came running (honest, I showered that day!).

The grizzly bear depends on their noses to tell them when other bears, potentially bigger and badder bears are in the area. They use their noses to find food as well as provide them with ideas of where and where not to look. Watching their noses and being aware of the wind, you can have some idea what they are doing and know when to worry about your own back. When shooting bears, I always keep checking behind me every few minutes. I’m not worried about some surprise attack harming me. However, I want to stay aware of a situation where I might all of a sudden be between bears that aren’t happy to see each other or a sow just emerging from the forest with her cubs, wanting to fight the big boar that I’m photographing. By shooting with the wind on your back when facing a bear, you can rely on their nose to help tell you when other bears are coming.

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The Fisherman

I’m sure you’ve all seen the image of the grizzly either at McNeil River or Brooks Camp where the griz is standing in a waterfall, catching leaping salmon. This is definitely the most commonly thought of way how grizzlies catch salmon. But if you ask any Alaskan what other waterfalls in Alaska where this occurs, you might hear a list that’s mighty short. While it’s the most commonly photographed, catching salmon at waterfalls appears to be the least common way that grizzlies fish.

The more common method of fishing for grizzlies is simply along the many thousands of creeks, which salmon migrate up each summer to perpetuate their kind. Salmon can be so thick that they are crammed side by side, tail to head in a creek! The run I saw come in from the ocean this September was a dark cloud in the water, tails and jaws teaming, squirming, fighting and pushing to get upstream. For the fisherman and grizzly alike, this is a sight before eyes!

When it comes to catching the salmon, the grizzlies can use any one of a hundred tactics to catch a salmon. You won’t know the tactic the bears you’re watching will use until they actually start fishing. They might just jump in, sending salmon and water flying! They might stand on the side of the stream and snare a salmon as it goes by with the delicate touch of the claw of their paw. They might have a favorite rock or small island in the middle of the creek they prefer to stand on like Snoopy on his doghouse, hunched over waiting for a salmon they can grab. They might take a plunge and “swim” about with their heads underwater, looking for salmon to snatch. They might run through the shallows of a creek, chasing salmon in hopes of pinning one under their paw. I even saw one bear in a deep portion of a creek, wade in and fish like a ballerina, nose just above the water line as it felt for salmon with it hind legs. Another tried the same thing, but used its front legs to pin a salmon in its own grasp.

Like I said, there are a lot of different ways that the grizzly bears on these creeks have evolved to catch salmon. A lot of times, they are methods taught to youngsters by their mother and passed down generation to generation. Even fishing sites, holes, times and strategies are passed on by the sow to the cubs! So it only follows that if you want to photograph grizzlies fishing, you’ve got to find salmon!

The same basic rule of the largest gets their way applies to the fishing holes as well. The best holes are garnered by the biggest and baddest except for the exceptions as mentioned earlier. The difference here is the bears tend to get fuller faster, and so go sleep off their meal, allowing other bears to come and make use of the great hole until the big boys wake up and want to feed some more. Finding the great holes where bears like to hang out is really easy, just look at the tracks in the mud. You’ll see where the big boys like to be as their big tracks are really easy to see!

Photographing the fishing bear takes more skill than that of the grazing bear. The reason is the action that’s occurring, the bear actively in one form or another, trying to catch a fish. You’re also going to have to deal with the water, where all this action is going on. For example, on an overcast day, which is my favorite light to photograph the bears, the water can look rather drab to say the least. And when the griz has that squirmy salmon in its jaw, you’d best have a lot of light for a fast shutter speed to get the eye sharp!

The one technique you ought to be really good at when photographing the fishing bear is panning. They are on the move it seems quite a lot. You’ve got to be able to pan and fire to capture the really killer images of the bears in action. I would also strongly suggest you have an 80-200f2.8 or similar focal length-f/stop combo hanging on a second body on your shoulder. There are times that they are so close you’ll need this focal length to capture the action.

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A Thought on Bear Light

The Grizzly Bear got its name because the first ones seen by white man had a “grizzled” look about them. I wouldn’t say no two look alike, but they are as different in pelt color as a photographer might desire. And it would seem everyone has his or her favorites. I personally like the slightly darker ones with the grizzled tinge to their coat. But you can have them as dark as sin or so light that they look almost white with every shade and combo in between that your imagination can conjure up. And depending on the pelt, different lighting can make a real difference.

Photographically, I think overcast days in general is the best light for bears the majority of the time. This permits one to take advantage of the natural color contrast inherent in the coat of the griz. All the subtleties can be captured by film, which is the real trick here. As always, I dial in +1/3 stop to brighten up the scene and then go about shooting as normal. The griz has a small eye and in a lighter pelted individual, it’s a whole lot easier to see that eye, which is very important so the viewer of the image can make contact. But with darker individuals, those little dark beady eyes can get lost without some sort of directional light striking them. But don’t think for a moment that if the sun comes out, I wouldn’t photograph the bears.

When the sun is out, you just have to work the bears and the situation to make the most of it. For example, a dark colored bear in the fresh green of spring, on a full sunlit day can be a little contrasty. The same bear in the same grasses but in fall when they have turned tan can be real contrasty. You either look for a lighter colored griz to photograph, hope for a cloud to come by to diffuse the sun, or realize that your film might not be able to hold all the detail. One saving grace is that these bears are in Alaska where the morning and evening light lasts for such a long time. This is one creature that truly looks its best in the light of these times of day.

One of the cool things about the griz is being able to photograph it side or back lit. Their hairs just tend to naturally glow when lit either of these ways, making all sorts of other photographic possibilities possible. You just have to remember that with dark individual bears when lit this way, it will be hard to see their small dark eyes. And seeing the eyes is very important to the success of your image!

Now by no means would I walk up to a griz that I hadn’t photographed before and just start firing away! Sharon and I spent hours watching grizzlies in Denali for example, learning their individual behavior and characteristics, watching outside pressures and waiting for them to get close on their own terms before I started to photograph them. I also talked with another photographer who I greatly trust and learned from his experiences as well before taking on these gentle giants. Understanding their basic biology not only kept me safe and permitted the bears to do their thing, but also helped capture the images I desired. You can do the same thing with the same rewards by following these words of advice I’ve offered here.

I found photographing coastal grizzly bears to be one of the greatest challenges I’ve faced as a photographer. Capturing great images of the bear eating, running or foraging isn’t the challenge. Capturing the size, power, strength of the bear and the grandeur of the grizzly bear’s home is the monumental challenge. When you spend any time in its home and walk its path, you get an insight into this creature that I generally don’t see in photographs of the griz. After getting over the “wow” factor (and that takes along time when you’re so close to these magnificent creatures) and getting down to communicating, this challenge kept me awake at night. That challenge will keep me thinking all winter until I venture to Alaska again, to photograph the coastal grizzly bear!

Want to get in on the challenge? Where I photograph these coastal grizzly bears is open to anyone wanting to take up the challenge! You can’t drive there, but must fly in by a small plane and land on a beach. The folks at Silver Salmon Creek Lodge are there waiting when you land to share their incredible slice of Alaska with you. David Corey, the owner and host, is a native with a big smile and desire to share this piece of Alaska with you. Arne, photographer and bear guide expert, will get you safely so close to these bears, you will come back a changed person. You can contact the folks at Silver Salmon Creek Lodge at 907.262.4839. I hope to see you there!

Photographing Alaska's Coastal Grizzly Bear

Reprint from Nov ’99 BT Journal

Note: You should not take the information here and then go find a grizzly bear to photograph. This information is provided so when you go with a guide such as myself, you are photographically prepared to capture the image.

Alaska has a number of big mammal species that I want to get to know better (and photograph) with the Grizzly Bear definitely at the top of that list. While science categorizes grizzlies into just a couple of species, with my limited exposure to them, I like to think of the grizzly a little differently than science does. This B News article is about the group of Alaskan Grizzlies that I think of as the coastal grizzly. These are the grizzlies that make their home in the coastal stretches along the Alaskan Range, the west side of Cook Inlet.

Now by no means am I going to pass myself off as a Grizzly Bear expert, having thousands of hours of observation time under my belt. What I have to offer you are insights that I’ve gathered after a couple of weeks of daily observation and photography of coastal grizzly bears. I was amongst two dozen individual Grizzly Bears and at times just feet away from them. I went on my adventure with all sorts of thoughts, stories and myths about grizzlies in my head, many the same ones you might have. But the experiences I had dashed the myths surrounding these magnificent creatures. It’s my hope to enlighten you about these gentle giants, enticing you to come to Alaska and experience for yourself the coastal grizzlies!

The “myth” I went to Alaska with that I think a lot of others have is that getting physically close to a grizzly is like courting death. When another photographer told me that his headshot of a grizzly was taken with an 80-200f2.8 lens, I was in awe, thinking that getting that close was living on the edge to say the least. Photographing grizzlies in socially uptight locales like Brooks Camp or McNeil River where there are lots of grizzlies in a small space, getting physically close is probably not a wise thing to do. There are too many “bear things” going on that we humans just can’t see or know about all the time. But in situations where grizzlies are doing grizzly things in wide open spaces without other “bear pressures”, getting physically close is not life threatening. In fact, being just a few feet from an 800lb sow and three cubs is one of the most exciting wildlife experiences this old photographer has ever done in his life!

Like all articles I’ve written where I’ve stressed understanding basic biology, photographing grizzlies more than any other species, depends on basic biological knowledge. Much of what I have to share with you I first read in biological reports, having the biology lessons reinforced by personal observation. I had a 900lb male griz run at me from more than one hundred yards out. He ended up passing by me still in a run by less than ten feet (yes, I was shooting the entire time). Being able to experience and distinguish that bear’s behavior as running and not charging was personally and photographically rewarding! But it’s that kind of basic biological understandings I’m stressing folks have so they experience the rewards of Grizzly Bear photography. (Please understand that photographers are seemingly killed each year by grizzly attacks, yet most of the time the fatalities are because of the photographer’s ignorance and not grizzly aggression.)

Coastal grizzlies have two main foraging strategies, grazing and fishing. Both of these strategies offer great bear viewing and photography. Understanding what you’re seeing and being able to capture the best possible photograph relies directly, in my opinion, on your knowledge of what you’re seeing in the viewfinder. Let this be the start of your bear lessons.

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The Grazers

Grizzly Bears emerge from their winter dens hungry. They have been living off their fat reserves for many months as they slept and they emerge in a mode to replace the fat they lost plus more. But they typically have at least forty-five days to wait until the first big salmon runs begin. While they might find carrion like a winter moose kill or washed up seal or possibly whale carcass, it’s not enough to sustain one grizzly let alone a whole population of grizzlies and their hungers for long. And if we’re talking about a sow nursing spring or second year cubs, there is an even more pressing need for immediate food. The grizzly has evolved amazingly to succeed through the eons not on these seemingly bare pickings but by foraging on the sedges of the sloughs and coastline until the salmon run (and still eating sedges after the runs have started). What boggles my mind is these gentle giants become giants on grass!

The sea of green sedges, covering many coastal beachhead stretches attracts bears from all over the region. The lush, new growth of these grasses, believe it or not, sustains the coastal grizzly (or as the locals call them, brown bears where as the interior bears they call grizzlies). In fact, they are even able to start putting on fat from this forage. At one of my favorite locales to photograph griz, Silver Salmon Creek, the grizzlies are like cattle on the flats, grazing on the grass as a treasured delicacy!
The spring light bathes the ocean of grass as the bears come out of the trees to graze. The scene is seemingly tranquil to us humans with the bears spaced out over the landscape, feeding. But there is an unspoken law of the land where the bears live, and survive by, that needs to be understood by us humans before we go further on in this story.

There is a hierarchy on the fields of sedge much the same as on the stream or slope. It can be summed up basically as the largest has the right of way. But there are a few caveats to this basic “king of the hill” structure that you, the bear observer and photographer, need to understand. While the biggest griz is most likely a large male or boar, there are times when it could be a female or sow. And when a sow shows up with cubs, even the biggest boars give them space. So a female with cubs sometimes supercedes the largest in size. The pecking order basically goes from the largest to the smallest with size typically being directly related to age, the older the bigger. And you know what they say about age, the older the wiser. I think this truly relates to the grizzly.

I bet you’ve heard the warning, “never get between a sow and her cubs.” This is generally a very good rule to go by. But getting in between them is not a guaranteed death sentence. I have a good friend who has been in this situation many times, and still walks to tell the tales. The little caveat to this myth is, if you’re between the sow and cubs and the cubs bawl, communicating that they feel threatened, the sow will crash through anything in the way to reach her cubs and make them feel safe. If you’re in the way, well, you’ll be flattened. But if the cubs go about their business and never bawl or express that they feel threatened, the sow will go about her business.
And there are times when you’re so close to a family group that the cubs will come right up to you. Cubs are naturally curious about the world around them, just as they are when they become full size bears. You need to understand that this curiosity is how bears survive, learning and finding new food sources amongst other things. When those cubs walk up to you, you need to avoid panicking! You must keep your wits about you, trying to keep from being placed between the curious cubs and their mom. You must keep the cubs from feeling menaced even though they approached you! Moving away from the cubs while talking to them softly as you move is what has been suggested to me as the best course of action when in this situation.

The sedges is one of the best places to first see and photograph spring cubs, which are without a doubt, the cutest and most entertaining creatures on this earth! Photographing the cubs takes a quick hand and sense of humor I think. A quick hand is necessary because cubs are busy little bundles of fur, bouncing about while learning about their world. The cubs that I got to watch were characters! One time while I was fly fishing, a sow with two cubs walked by on the creek bank. (I was fishing in the main channel of the creek.) The family was walking by, watching me while looking for salmon. The family led by the sow crossed a small creek flowing into the one I was fishing. The sow walked across first, followed by the first cub and then the second. As the second cub reached the center of the creek, a salmon must have hit it in the foot because that little cub jumped into the air, bawled and then flew the rest of the distance across the creek to the safety of its mother’s side! Oh, I wish I had a camera that moment! I was laughing so hard I lost the salmon I had on my line!

Typically it’s the dominant male cub that’s the most active it seems, off exploring a squirrel’s hole, playing with a salmon carcass or bouncing off the side of mom. That’s why I say you need to be quick at hand and have a sense of humor. Being quick, you’ll be able to follow the action. Having a sense of humor, you’ll be able to anticipate the action, sort of. While we camped in Denali Nat’l Park on another trip this year, we had to sleep in our vehicle one night and not in our tents because we were told that two cubs had taken a liking to bouncing off the sides of tents. They weren’t hurting anything, just bouncing off tents like they were trampolines!
When photographing the bears grazing, getting a tack sharp image can be a challenge. For one thing, they are tearing at the sedges like pulling out weeds, more than biting the sedges off at the roots like typical grazers. This action means their heads are constantly in motion. When you focus on the eye, as you should, the jaws and their powerful muscles are right below and in motion. Just after they tear the grass they have a mouthful of sedge, which they seem to then grind slightly in their jaws before swallowing. This causes their facial muscles to tremble as they chew. Photographing the bears while they’re eating and capturing a sharp image on a sunny morn or afternoon is a no brainer, but in typical low light situations in Alaska, this can be a real difficult scenario.

This is the reason I bought the 400f2.8 AFS. Being able to work in lower light is a whole lot easier with f2.8 not necessarily because of a faster shutter speed because as in the scenario I just described, in low light there isn’t a faster speed fast enough to stop the action. No, rather the “fast” lens permits me to be quick to follow the action as the lens can focus in the lower light and I can see more in the viewfinder. I did note though that in some situations with some of the bears with a near even coat, no lights or darks but all the same shade of color, in lower light situations, the F5 sometimes had a hard time finding focus. The lack of contrast was the problem.
When photographing the grazing bears, first you want to check the wind direction. Not that you have to make any adjustments, but you want to be aware of it because of the bears incredible smelling ability. We watched one bear perhaps half a mile away, down wind of us, run the entire half mile to a salmon carcass lying fifty yards in front of us. There is no way the bear could see the carcass, just us standing there, but it smelled the carcass at that distance and came running (honest, I showered that day!).

The grizzly bear depends on their noses to tell them when other bears, potentially bigger and badder bears are in the area. They use their noses to find food as well as provide them with ideas of where and where not to look. Watching their noses and being aware of the wind, you can have some idea what they are doing and know when to worry about your own back. When shooting bears, I always keep checking behind me every few minutes. I’m not worried about some surprise attack harming me. However, I want to stay aware of a situation where I might all of a sudden be between bears that aren’t happy to see each other or a sow just emerging from the forest with her cubs, wanting to fight the big boar that I’m photographing. By shooting with the wind on your back when facing a bear, you can rely on their nose to help tell you when other bears are coming.

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The Fisherman

I’m sure you’ve all seen the image of the grizzly either at McNeil River or Brooks Camp where the griz is standing in a waterfall, catching leaping salmon. This is definitely the most commonly thought of way how grizzlies catch salmon. But if you ask any Alaskan what other waterfalls in Alaska where this occurs, you might hear a list that’s mighty short. While it’s the most commonly photographed, catching salmon at waterfalls appears to be the least common way that grizzlies fish.

The more common method of fishing for grizzlies is simply along the many thousands of creeks, which salmon migrate up each summer to perpetuate their kind. Salmon can be so thick that they are crammed side by side, tail to head in a creek! The run I saw come in from the ocean this September was a dark cloud in the water, tails and jaws teaming, squirming, fighting and pushing to get upstream. For the fisherman and grizzly alike, this is a sight before eyes!

When it comes to catching the salmon, the grizzlies can use any one of a hundred tactics to catch a salmon. You won’t know the tactic the bears you’re watching will use until they actually start fishing. They might just jump in, sending salmon and water flying! They might stand on the side of the stream and snare a salmon as it goes by with the delicate touch of the claw of their paw. They might have a favorite rock or small island in the middle of the creek they prefer to stand on like Snoopy on his doghouse, hunched over waiting for a salmon they can grab. They might take a plunge and “swim” about with their heads underwater, looking for salmon to snatch. They might run through the shallows of a creek, chasing salmon in hopes of pinning one under their paw. I even saw one bear in a deep portion of a creek, wade in and fish like a ballerina, nose just above the water line as it felt for salmon with it hind legs. Another tried the same thing, but used its front legs to pin a salmon in its own grasp.

Like I said, there are a lot of different ways that the grizzly bears on these creeks have evolved to catch salmon. A lot of times, they are methods taught to youngsters by their mother and passed down generation to generation. Even fishing sites, holes, times and strategies are passed on by the sow to the cubs! So it only follows that if you want to photograph grizzlies fishing, you’ve got to find salmon!

The same basic rule of the largest gets their way applies to the fishing holes as well. The best holes are garnered by the biggest and baddest except for the exceptions as mentioned earlier. The difference here is the bears tend to get fuller faster, and so go sleep off their meal, allowing other bears to come and make use of the great hole until the big boys wake up and want to feed some more. Finding the great holes where bears like to hang out is really easy, just look at the tracks in the mud. You’ll see where the big boys like to be as their big tracks are really easy to see!

Photographing the fishing bear takes more skill than that of the grazing bear. The reason is the action that’s occurring, the bear actively in one form or another, trying to catch a fish. You’re also going to have to deal with the water, where all this action is going on. For example, on an overcast day, which is my favorite light to photograph the bears, the water can look rather drab to say the least. And when the griz has that squirmy salmon in its jaw, you’d best have a lot of light for a fast shutter speed to get the eye sharp!

The one technique you ought to be really good at when photographing the fishing bear is panning. They are on the move it seems quite a lot. You’ve got to be able to pan and fire to capture the really killer images of the bears in action. I would also strongly suggest you have an 80-200f2.8 or similar focal length-f/stop combo hanging on a second body on your shoulder. There are times that they are so close you’ll need this focal length to capture the action.

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A Thought on Bear Light

The Grizzly Bear got its name because the first ones seen by white man had a “grizzled” look about them. I wouldn’t say no two look alike, but they are as different in pelt color as a photographer might desire. And it would seem everyone has his or her favorites. I personally like the slightly darker ones with the grizzled tinge to their coat. But you can have them as dark as sin or so light that they look almost white with every shade and combo in between that your imagination can conjure up. And depending on the pelt, different lighting can make a real difference.

Photographically, I think overcast days in general is the best light for bears the majority of the time. This permits one to take advantage of the natural color contrast inherent in the coat of the griz. All the subtleties can be captured by film, which is the real trick here. As always, I dial in +1/3 stop to brighten up the scene and then go about shooting as normal. The griz has a small eye and in a lighter pelted individual, it’s a whole lot easier to see that eye, which is very important so the viewer of the image can make contact. But with darker individuals, those little dark beady eyes can get lost without some sort of directional light striking them. But don’t think for a moment that if the sun comes out, I wouldn’t photograph the bears.

When the sun is out, you just have to work the bears and the situation to make the most of it. For example, a dark colored bear in the fresh green of spring, on a full sunlit day can be a little contrasty. The same bear in the same grasses but in fall when they have turned tan can be real contrasty. You either look for a lighter colored griz to photograph, hope for a cloud to come by to diffuse the sun, or realize that your film might not be able to hold all the detail. One saving grace is that these bears are in Alaska where the morning and evening light lasts for such a long time. This is one creature that truly looks its best in the light of these times of day.

One of the cool things about the griz is being able to photograph it side or back lit. Their hairs just tend to naturally glow when lit either of these ways, making all sorts of other photographic possibilities possible. You just have to remember that with dark individual bears when lit this way, it will be hard to see their small dark eyes. And seeing the eyes is very important to the success of your image!

Now by no means would I walk up to a griz that I hadn’t photographed before and just start firing away! Sharon and I spent hours watching grizzlies in Denali for example, learning their individual behavior and characteristics, watching outside pressures and waiting for them to get close on their own terms before I started to photograph them. I also talked with another photographer who I greatly trust and learned from his experiences as well before taking on these gentle giants. Understanding their basic biology not only kept me safe and permitted the bears to do their thing, but also helped capture the images I desired. You can do the same thing with the same rewards by following these words of advice I’ve offered here.

I found photographing coastal grizzly bears to be one of the greatest challenges I’ve faced as a photographer. Capturing great images of the bear eating, running or foraging isn’t the challenge. Capturing the size, power, strength of the bear and the grandeur of the grizzly bear’s home is the monumental challenge. When you spend any time in its home and walk its path, you get an insight into this creature that I generally don’t see in photographs of the griz. After getting over the “wow” factor (and that takes along time when you’re so close to these magnificent creatures) and getting down to communicating, this challenge kept me awake at night. That challenge will keep me thinking all winter until I venture to Alaska again, to photograph the coastal grizzly bear!

Want to get in on the challenge? Where I photograph these coastal grizzly bears is open to anyone wanting to take up the challenge! You can’t drive there, but must fly in by a small plane and land on a beach. The folks at Silver Salmon Creek Lodge are there waiting when you land to share their incredible slice of Alaska with you. David Corey, the owner and host, is a native with a big smile and desire to share this piece of Alaska with you. Arne, photographer and bear guide expert, will get you safely so close to these bears, you will come back a changed person. You can contact the folks at Silver Salmon Creek Lodge at 907.262.4839. I hope to see you there!

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