Northern "Yellowhammer" 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.