Wednesday, September 26, 2018

Cormorant taking Flight

This is another chapter in the lesson of patience.  
I'm guessing this is a Double Crested Cormorant.  The bird is said to be local in great numbers.  It looks like what I see in Wikipedia.
Back to patience.  As I was moving slowly through the Refuge, I could see a number of these Cormorants in various locations.  This one I saw just paddling around.  He/she/it looked like flight was soon and I decided to wait.  And wait.  And wait.  Realistically it was only a few minutes, but it did seem like a long time.  And wait.
I don't have any avian transitional images.  The birds are either on the ground/water or not.  I have seen wonderful shots of avian take offs, landings and attacks.  Again, I have none of those.
I was not going to be denied at this time, I knew flight was soon by this one.
And now I have an Avian takeoff.
This was at 9:00 AM on a very cloudy morning.  The light was really crappy and cast a bad color on the water.  Hey, its Michigan.  Doesn't matter, I have my action takeoff.
With light this bad, thank goodness for RAW.  A lot of times, I will try Photomatix to help with light levels.  When I use this method, I usually end up with a harsh image which I normally like.  However with the nature shots, I'm now leaning to a softer, more realistic look.  Unless......
But I want this as real as I can get.  No funny business.


ISO 400, f/5.6, 1/1000 sec, 450 mm

Not very colorful.  I have a few with a group of Cormorants that has better color, but for now, I have my Avian Takeoff.

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