Over the course of prepping for tonight's talk (details HERE) about Ohio's macro habitats and the conservation thereof, I dipped deep into the archives and ran across lots of imagery I hadn't looked at for a while or posted. Here's one.

A Common Tern (Sterna hirundo) whirls around on a dime after spotting a school of emerald shiners or some other fishy food source. Terns are consummate aeronauts, and woe to the fishes that they clap eyes on. This bird was over Lake Erie, near Toledo in Lucas County, Ohio, on May 10, 2022.

PHOTO NOTE: Terns are fairly low-hanging fruit, insofar as aerial imagery goes. While they can be swift, hunting terns are pretty predictable in their movements and thus easier to track. Modern gear makes such shots far easier, too. I used my favorite BIF (Birds In Flight) gear for this image: the Canon R5, and Canon's ultralight 400mm DO f/4 II lens, with the Canon 1.4x teleconverter, version II. That equates to 560mm, and the range between 400mm and 560mm is just about perfect for quickly locking on and tracking BIF with a handheld setup. I use back-button focus exclusively, and each of my camera's three back buttons, which are easily accessible with my right thumb, are programmed to different focus settings. I used the all points active/eye recognition program, which is magical in its ability to find eyes and keep the focus precisely on an eye. In animal photography, you always want the eye to be sharp. All I have to do is keep the subject in the field of view and try to be positioned where the light is best.

Settings were f/8 at 1/2500 second. If light permits, I like to be stopped down to f/8 or even more, to get more sharpness throughout the subject, particularly when a blank, non-distractive background is present (like this blue sky). 1/2500 is plenty fast enough to mostly freeze a tern, although hummingbirds and some other subjects might necessitate even faster speeds. The ISO was at 500, but I very rarely set ISO to a specific value when shooting birds. There is no good reason that I can think of to do so. I let the ISO float, but keep a close eye on it, which is easy as the ISO speed displays live time in my viewfinder. If it starts increasing to a point of undesirability, such as ISO 2500 or more, if possible, I rein it in by slowing the shutter speed or opening the lens up more, or a combination thereof.

Photographic/Watercolor conservation art exhibit

 

Watercolor artist Juliet Mullett and I have collaborated on an art exhibit focused on flora, fauna, and conservation. It features 51 pieces: Juliet's amazing watercolor pencil portraits, many of which are new (like the box turtle on the poster above), and my photography. It hangs on the walls of the Grange Insurance Audubon Center, just south of downtown Columbus, Ohio. Registration info is HERE.

While the exhibit went on the walls on November 2, the semi-official kickoff is Saturday, November 16. Doors open at 5:30 pm and I will give a talk about conservation, including many of the subjects of our works, at 7 pm. It's free, and I'd love to see you there. Feel free to pass the word!

Northern "Yellow-shafted" Flicker

 

A male Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus) comes in for a landing, showing off his golden underwings and tail. This is the former "Yellow-shafted" Flicker that ranges over the eastern two-thirds of North America. Its western counterpart is the "Red-shafted" Flicker, in which the yellow is replaced with bright red. Formerly considered separate species, the two were lumped in 1982 due to extensive hybridization in the zone where the two come into contact. Flickers are spectacular woodpeckers, and fascinating on many levels. This was Roger Tory Peterson's "spark bird"; the species that got him interested in ornithology. I photographed this one yesterday in Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Summit County, Ohio.

Ohio-Erie Canal

 

As always, click the image to enlarge

The long-abandoned Ohio-Erie Canal, in Cuyahoga Valley National Park, on a misty morning. Shauna and I had a great time visiting various spots in Ohio's only national park. This was a place called Beaver Marsh, and not only did we see that namesake animal, but lots of other interesting subjects. Summit County, Ohio, November 2, 2024.

PHOTO NOTE: This was very early in the morning, a bit prior to dawn. Mist was rising from the water in places, and the overall effect was dark and ethereal. We were there primarily for birds, and all I had was my 800mm telephoto on a tripod and a 16-35mm wide-angle and 100mm macro lens in my backpack. The 16-35, even at 35mm, was too wide to show this scene in the way that I wanted. The 800, which I sometimes do use for tight landscapes, was WAY too overkill in this situation. So, I popped on the 100mm macro lens (my body is a Canon R5, and all lenses are Canon). The macro lens can be surprisingly good for fairly tight landscape work, although I often forget to employ it for such purposes. Anyway, I wanted to exclude the rather drab white sky not far above the top of this image (which is completely uncropped), and the ghostly white trunk of the sycamore on the left drove my decision as to where to frame the left side of the composition. I liked the gnarly stump jutting from the water towards the bottom left so that decided where the bottom of the composition would go. The rest fell into place.

But a note about the macro lens, and higher ISO levels. I made this shot at f/16, 1/30 second, and a very high ISO 6400, handheld. I have found that - and sometimes forget - that the combination of the macro lens' "compression" and a relatively high ISO can create a very "painterly" effect to a treed landscape. There was absolutely no wind, and while there may have been a bit of camera shake, the latter was probably minor as the lens has killer image stabilization and I am pretty steady. Yet the leaves, especially, blur like a Monet watercolor - an effect I very much like in some landscapes. I cannot get that effect from my primary go-to landscape lenses, the 16-35mm and 70-200mm.

Had I had the 70-200 with me, I might have unthinkingly grabbed that, probably using about the same 100mm focal range as my macro, but would have put it on the tripod, set the ISO to 100 or 200 at f/13 or f/16, and made the shot. The shutter exposure would have been REALLY long (far too long to handhold) but who cares when it's on a tripod. But I would have ended up with an image that would be crisp throughout, and largely void of the soft blurred foliage of this shot.

Anna's Hummingbird in Ohio

 

A subadult male Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna) strikes a pose. The bird has been present for about a week in and around the yard of Gerry and John Brevoort, in a north Columbus neighborhood. Two Ruby-throated Hummingbirds have also been hanging around. When Gerry noticed this bird, she didn't think it looked right for a ruby-throat. Its identity was parsed out and word came down last Monday. I could not make it until today - even though it is only about a 12-minute drive - but there were no worries. The hummer is still in residence, and it may stay for some time. This is the third Ohio record of this species, and the other two stayed for over a month.

Anna's Hummingbird is quite hardy and breeds as far north as southern British Columbia. Some hummers routinely venture to southeastern Alaska. The primary breeding range is California - and that state was the traditional core range for this species - but Anna's Hummingbird has been actively expanding its range for the last 60 years. It now nests on Oregon and Washington and has expanded eastward into Arizona and probably has bred/breeds in Nevada and Texas.

The reasons for the expansion involve widespread plantings of suitable nectar source plants, and the proliferation of hummingbird feeders. Anna's Hummingbird appears to be highly adaptable and quick to utilize new opportunities.

The Anna's Hummingbird between sips of sugar water at one of the Brevoort's feeders. This young male's colorful gorget feathers are coming in, and before too long the bird's throat and crown will be shingled in dazzling purplish-red feathered scales.

Anna's Hummingbird, perhaps surprisingly, is a short-distance migrant and what migrations do occur are confusing. Some individuals/populations don't migrate at all, while others move north, up to higher elevations, or relatively short distances in any direction. Much remains to be learned about Anna's Hummingbird migration.

I've occasionally spoken my mind about the use of the term "vagrants" when applied to birds (or perhaps most winged organisms). While there truly are vagrants, such as hurricane-blown birds far off course, and others assisted by similar dramatic weather events, and perhaps the rare individual who loses control of its internal GPS, I don't think in many instances the vagrant term is proper.

Vagrancy implies a haphazard wandering, and I don't think that's what is going on, at least in many cases involving birds. Rather, these out of the normal range individuals (often first-year birds) might be thought of as "scouts". Perhaps a tiny percentage of populations of highly mobile birds are in effect pre-programmed to wander far from their core range. How else would a species discover new fertile territory and expand its range? While most of these out-of-range birds will not locate prime new territory and will either perish or perhaps with luck make it back "home", over the long haul suitable new turf will be discovered and conquered and the range will expand.

There are now Anna's Hummingbird records from nearly every state, all of the way to the eastern seaboard. Also, the southern reaches of most eastern Canadian provinces. The long-haul record belongs to an Anna's Hummingbird that appeared near St. John's, Newfoundland on January 19, 2011, and stayed for about three weeks. That's as far east as one can go in eastern North America and not a particularly hospitable place, weatherwise, in the dead of winter.

It'll be interesting to see how the expansion of the adaptable Anna's Hummingbird goes. I suspect the influx of out-of-range birds will continue, and the breeding range will continue its eastward creep.

Thanks again to the Brevoorts for making scores of people welcome, and for bringing this Anna's Hummingbird to light.

Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks nest again in Ohio, producing scads of chicks

 

This rather innocuous-looking place was our destination last Sunday, October 20, 2024, and it's a spot I had been hoping to visit for a few months. Better late than never, and in this case, late was probably better.

Shauna and I packed the gear and drove the hour and a half to Ohio State University's sprawling Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center campus near Wooster, in Wayne County, Ohio. The locale in the photo is perhaps most noteworthy for its string of six little ponds. Parts of two of those are visible in the photo. This is where the latest crop of nesting Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks (Dendrocygna autumnalis) has been hanging out.

This tropical duck was first found nesting in Ohio just a few miles from this spot, in 2022. I wrote about that RIGHT HERE.

While I knew finding and seeing the large "tree ducks" would not be difficult, in this case it was ridiculously easy. We pulled into the site, and before even getting out of the vehicle I heard the squeaky peeping whistles of the whistling-ducks. A glance in the direction of the pond revealed the extended head of an adult, peeking up and over the embankment. It didn't long to walk into a good position and start getting shots of the beautiful fowl. Here, two adults with pink bills bookend three dusky-billed juveniles.

But wait! There were more! It didn't take long to realize that the pack had expanded from the eBird reports I had recently seen, which listed 10 juveniles and two adults. In total, we saw 19 juveniles and six adults. We arrived right around sunrise, and the ducks were still resting on the banks of one of the small ponds, in three discrete pods, each with two adults. It would appear that three pairs of whistling-ducks bred somewhere locally, and then merged the troops here after the young became flighted. As we were leaving, Jethro Raber, an ace local birder who has been keeping tabs on the ducks, told us that the assemblage of this big pack was a recent event, just a day or two prior to our visit if I recall correctly.

As always, you can click the image to enlarge and if you do with the photo above, you'll see the frosty rime on the grass. It was in the low 30's F the prior night, and nighttime temps have been getting consistently frosty. I suspect these Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks will not hang around much longer.

As the sun warmed the earth, and the birds, they began foraging and moving around. We saw them skimming lesser duckweed (Lemna minor) from the pond's surface and plucking at other plants. While they didn't venture far, some short flights were made, and we saw all 25 birds flying and flying well. The juveniles will soon be ready for their southward journey, if they aren't already. A juvenile stretches its long wings in the image above, and shares space with four other young birds. An adult is to the far right.

An adult whistling-duck strikes a pose. It is atop a long linear pile of who knows what. I suspect the material is a mixture of manure and other offal of farming operations, but I really have no idea. There was something in there that pleased the ducks, though, and they avidly rooted about in the stuff. Perhaps corn kernels or other edible plant matter.

Once the ducks became active, they wasted little time in heading to these piles and remained on and around them the rest of the time that we were there. I wonder if this stuff, whatever it may be (and if you know, please leave a comment) is what made them fixate on this particular site.

A juvenile strikes a subservient posture before an adult. It was great fun observing the interactions and dynamics of these charismatic birds. While highly social, there are pecking orders and squabbles to establish them. Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks can be incredibly tame, and these birds weren't exactly shrinking violets. Nonetheless, we maintained a good distance from them which allows for better opportunities to observe natural interactions while avoiding the possibility of spooking/flushing the birds. There's no reason to do that, in this situation especially.

It seems that we are seeing the genesis of a breeding population of Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks develop before our eyes. From one pair three years ago, that produced (if memory serves) four surviving chicks, to the current crop of three apparent broods and 19 chicks. All of the last three year's nestings were within a few miles of each other. It'll be interesting to see if and how the Wayne County population continues its expansion, and if and where other future breeding records occur. I don't know offhand the exact number of Black-bellied Whistling-Duck records in Ohio, but since the first report in 2004, there have probably been a few dozen. It seems likely that other vagrant (if we can still call them that) whistling-ducks will remain to breed elsewhere in the state.

A very cool moth

 

On July 28 of this year, I did some backyard mothing - something that I should do more of here, as I usually get cool bugs. And who doesn't like cool bugs. This uber-cool bug is a Lesser Grapevine Looper (Eulithis diversilineata), a moth that arches its abdomen up and over until it points at its snout. While conspicuous on a white shed wall, this bizarre posture may serve it well as disruptive camouflage when hiding in vegetated haunts. Its caterpillars feed on grape and Virginia creeper and I've got plenty of that. Worthington, Ohio.