Weekend Trip To Whitewater Draw

As noted in our last post, we made our second, and likely last trip this season to visit with the Sandhill Cranes at Whitewater Draw. They usually depart mid-February, so they'll be headed north very soon. We made a slight detour on the way down and visited Dave, who lives near Sierra Vista. He was on our first trip what, 3 years ago, and indicated that a lens of his, a 400mm F/4 might be available to borrow. Well, we finally got a chance to make good on that deal. He wasn't up to join us on the trip, but the lens did!

We've been chasing birds for a couple years now, both here in Arizona and up in Illinois, but my "premium" lens has always been either a Nikon 500mm F/8, or a Meade 480mm F/6 - a small telescope, really. The problems with both is that they are manual focus, and birds rarely want to wait around while you spend time focusing on the glint of sunlight off their eyeball! So it is a joy to use one of these "super-telephoto" lenses that not only have auto focus (in a small fraction of a second) and image stabilization to boot! All pictures from our last post, as well as this one, (except the sunset pic in Sunday's post) were taken with the 400 F/4 either alone or with a 1.4 converter. He is also allowing me to keep it for a week or two for some astronomical imaging, but we're in the middle of the rainiest weather we've had in years! We'll see if I get to try it at night...

Like we said in our last brief post, it was a little blustery upon our arrival at Whitewater, and while there were a lot of cranes and Snow Geese, they were mostly hunkered down from the wind, without any opportunities for "close encounters" with the big lens. I took a few shots from the viewing stands, but nothing spectacular. A little closer to sunset, from a different perspective, I was able to get some birders and cranes with the bright glint from the Large Binocular Telescope atop Mount Graham, 85 miles to the north.

I did have some success though with some of the smaller birds in the lagoons there. Even with the windy conditions, they gotta eat, so I followed a little Black Phoebe and managed some nice closeups with the 400+1.4. Their behavior is very much like the Vermillion Flycatchers mentioned a few posts ago. They fly off to catch a bug, but almost always return to the same roost between flights.

While waiting for the wind to die down, we did have some Northern Shovelers drift past, but they seemed more concerned feeding underwater than pay any attention to the birders. Mostly got lots of pictures of their butts in the air. Note the wind-induced waves - surfs up!


We always spot some new birds with every trip there. At least 3 this time including a pair of Common Snipe (pics only from a distance) and a female Northern Harrier. The Harrier was quite spectacular in it's behavior. It came gliding in very slowly, almost hovering over some of the marshy islands looking for mice and prey. She made multiple passes over 15 or 20 minutes, though none very close. She was amazing to watch and you can see why they named a jet aircraft that hovers a harrier!






Another new one for us at Whitewater were a couple of Pied-Billed Grebes. The first approached us closely, though was almost directly up-sun, daring us to take photos of it. The second was nearer to sunset and was much more cautious. It was getting dark enough that I even used the on-camera flash to pull out a little more detail,and the reflection can be seen in it's eyeball. This one shows the more characteristic black stripe on it's bill displayed during breeding season.


The last picture to show off is of the crowd of Yellow-Headed Blackbirds. As I posted from our last trip, they appeared minutes before sunset, though seemingly sensing the big lens I was carrying, they kept their distance. But even from a distance, the flock collecting on the bare trees seemingly transformed them into flowering shrubs.

The visit was a classic - even with the wind and lack of close-up opportunities, it was a beautiful late afternoon and sunset, and a great time just to sit and watch nature happen. As the sun set, the cranes gathered in the growing darkness. I took a few shots - my favorite shot of them was in our last post. But as the stars came out, it was hard to leave, but the 2 hour return drive demanded it...

Whitewater Draw Weekend

With Winter firmly ahold of us (temps in the 60s!), it was time to plan a birding trip to Whitewater draw. I've posted about our many trips there a couple times a year for nearly a decade since we discovered it. In recent years, Arizona Game and Fish have installed a webcam to keep an eye (and ear!) on the action there. This year showed a LOT more water than in the last few years. I'm not sure it is from more rainfall or if the irrigation system is working again after failing a few years back. It sort of put a crimp on the cranes the last few years, so was looking forward to seeing the place again.

I ended up going out both Saturday AND Sunday! There were lots of cranes, but interestingly, they were all avoiding the water! Years past they all gathered in the shallow water to avoid predators (coyotes) through the night, but now they gathered on the banks. But this behavior brought them closer to the walking path, so was able to get some good close-ups.

The main activity besides resting (feeding is generally done in fields away from the wetlands), as well as male posing, presumably looking for females, or exerting dominance. The pair of males shown here were trying to out-do each other. I was in the perfect spot for the photo at left where they were standing tall with wings outstretched - mirroring each other. The left image is a full-resolution blowup to show the steely gaze of the crane looking my way.


It so happened that I was set up next to 2 other photographers - all of us shooting with the same setup - Canon cameras with the 500mm and 1.4X extender! I was the only local one. Anyway, the two cranes continued their antics shown here. At right, one went low the other high, and finally at right it appears the confrontation was over. I wasn't sure which one won the contest, but I'm sure that THEY did!

The group of cranes adjacent to the walking path was closest to us, but was small in numbers compared to the main group which seemed to the west side of the wetlands, about a quarter mile or so away. They were raising quite a racket out there, and in binoculars, seemed again to be avoiding the water. Some snow geese were, as usual, scattered among the sand hill cranes.

I love their rattling calls. If you tune in to the webcam above, you can hear them. On occasion when something causes them to take to the air, the show starts when you hear the wing beats of thousands of cranes taking to the air, then the ruckus starts with the calls also filling the air. I can sit and watch/listen for hours, which I generally do - occasionally taking a photo or two!

At left, the view is towards the west - the large groups of cranes can be seen at bottom, with many taken to the air, seen in silhouette against the Mule Mountains. The lowlands contain fields where the cranes often congregate.  At right is a view to the northwest, again seen against the mountains illuminated by a very low sun.

As has happened a few times in the past, as sunset neared, there appeared a "tornado" of blackbirds, rushing in huge groups to congregate in the reeds and rushes around open water. Upon closer examination, they were, in fact, yellow-headed blackbirds. At left they are seen as they gather, with cranes in the background. They are evidently close cousins of the more common redwing blackbirds, but Whitewater is the only place I've seen the yellow-headed version.

There were many other species of birds feeding. Here at right are seen a group of American coots taking one last feeding trip across the wetlands before it got dark. Only seen in silhouette here, they sport nearly white beaks and dark red eyes, making them more striking in full sunlight...


I had spotted a great blue heron as we entered from the parking lot, and right on cue at sunset, it flew right in front of me to roost in a clump of vegetation not 50 yards away. In the deepening twilight, the exposure was long enough that the wing flaps were blurred, but in scanning to follow it, at least the pupil of the eye is still sharp!

The usual routine was for the cranes to return to the protection of the water as nightfall came. Many took to the air and flew nearby, and it is always a challenge to capture them against the twilight sky. At right is about my best effort as they were gliding without flapping their wings. Even as it got dark they were sharply captured.


I'll have to say, that Saturday's twilight was likely the most spectacular I've ever seen! Of course, there are a lot of those in AZ, but this one was very long-lasting, actually 45 minutes of color from looking at the time stamp on my images. I've got 2 to show here, at left a single image showing some of the birders here distracted by the sunset colors. And at left is a 3-image "HDR" (High Dynamic Range) photo that combines different exposures to extend the visibility of highlights and shadows...

It was clear enough on Sunday to take a few
star photos.  The big news in astronomy now is that in the constellation of Orion, the upper left star, Betelgeuse has been growing fainter than it has ever been seen!  Instead of the brightest star in the prominent constellation, it is now third-brightest, effectively tied with Bellatrix, the upper right star.  At left I took a photo purposely out of focus to show the colors of the striking constellation.  The orange color of Betelgeuse reveals it to be a red giant star - very cool (thus orange-colored) compared to the bluish other stars of the constellation.  At right is another not quite as far out of focus to show much fainter star colors.  While most are still blue, many fainter ones have reddish colors as well.

I've only started to harvest images from these 2 trips, so look for more soon, as well as likely more trips while the cranes are here!

More Whitewater Draw Thru The 500mm Lens

Folks seemed impressed with my first results through the "new" (to me, anyway) 500mm lens in its debut at Whitewater Draw. In that last post I talked about how I found the lens and showed a few of my favorite shots of cranes and astronomical objects too. I took a closer look at the images collected and have a few more to add - this time I'll restrict myself to just the bird shots - may have more astronomical ones next time.


Interestingly, last year they (AZ Game and Fish) installed a webcam providing a live HD view of the cranes. This was a wonderful idea for the crane observing season as you could tune in several times a day to observe and even in the middle of the night you could enjoy their rattling calls to each other. Unfortunately, since my last post a couple days ago, it has been offline, but I will keep an eye on it and provide a post providing it comes on again soon. The crane season typically winds down after Valentine's day, so it may not get back again this season. Anyway, shown here is the camera, solar cells and little transmitter. The shot at left shows it right after sunset at the wetlands, but the sun was still shining up in the Chiricahua Mountains - at upper left you can see the profile of "Cochise's Head", a well known landmark from Eastern Arizona... At right is a closer view of just the camera on my most recent trip...


The cranes have been keeping their distance from the viewing stations, so the images can't compare to some of the images I've taken on foot from a few yards away in Illinois! There seems to be a lack of water this year, and they tend to congregate where the water is located to protect themselves from predators. But sometimes you can catch flocks of them against the sky which can sometimes be striking compositions. Shown here are a pair of shots of profiles against the twilight after the sun has gone down. As a result, they are only silhouettes, but hey - still striking profiles! I particularly like the left shot as it isn't quite dark enough to obscure the "purple" mountains, which occur for about 15 minutes before and after sunset. And the shot at right, the birds seems consciously to stagger their wingflaps to prevent interference! In actuality, they are likely offset along their direction of flight to prevent that...


But on my most recent trip a week ago, there were a lot more water fowl than the mid-December trip! With the lack of water, these birds stayed close to viewing stands too where the water was located, so was able to get some decent shots. While not uncommon, they are striking. Most have appeared here before in previous trips, but still fun to photograph and show off!

I love the striking color difference of the eyes and body color of the Cinnamon Teal at left. This was just about the first photo taken on last weekend's trip. Hadn't seen these for a few years, likely last time at Sweetwater Wetlands, a manmade retreat off of the water treatment plant on Tucson's west side. At right, the Green-Winged Teal has some similar colors, but quite striking patterns on its head and neck.


And this one might be a new one for us! At least in Melinda's birding book, where she meticulously notated where we first saw each species, this entry is blank - a Northern Pintail. There was quite a gang of them feeding together here, but I don't recall seeing them before, so snapped a few shots, but usually can't trust my memory if we've seen them before. Good thing I did!

And there are a few things besides birds at Whitewater. My first trip there in December, well after sunset there were a couple peering thru their binoculars at something, whispering to themselves. When asked what they were looking at they said they had been spotting some deer, so again, recorded it for posterity. Sure enough, I counted about a dozen white-tails venturing across the west side of the property - the dark shapes with birds in both the foreground and in the fields in the background too. It was actually quite dark, but the fast lens was able to pull them out of the dusk...

That's about it for now - some more astronomy shots next time...

Newish Glass!

The past few years, whenever I would suggest a purchase, Melinda would usually respond with "when I'm dead you can spend my life insurance money", which usually brought any discussions to a halt - you can't argue with a cancer patient! She did agree to a new TV when the old CRT set died, and she eventually came around after flat out stating that the 48" screen was "too big" at the beginning. Watching our Cubs win thru the summer became our favorite pastime...

Anyway, now that she has passed, and now there IS insurance money, I've tried to be responsible and spend it on what she would approve - paid off the AZ mortgage, and still debating on the IL house... Invested most of it so retirement should be more pleasant... But I did buy a little "toy" - one she even might have approved of if we had some disposable income! We were both fans of birding at Whitewater Draw and elsewhere, and also of astronomical imaging, so when I saw a Canon "super-telephoto" lens on Craigslist, I had to check it out. Shown at left, it is a 500mm F/4 - very fast optics allowing short exposures for astronomy and pretty good reach with fast autofocus and image stabilization for birding. It is an older first generation, but was a good deal including the camouflage-cover, the Wimberley tripod head and a Canon 2X converter. Note in the photo that most of the large diameter part is the sun shade!


I got the lens in the closing days of November and have had it out a few times and it is impressive in it's performance... If you do a Whitewater Draw search on this blog, I've hoisted a few telescopes along for birding a few times and while the images for a distant crane is impressive, the very fast autofocus and image stabilization it is a whole 'nother ball game! I can now focus and follow birds in flight and have them come out tack-sharp! I've made 2 trips to their over-winter home and have gotten a few favorites already. At left are some cranes in flight at that "magic time" just before sunset. And at right is a straight shot taken with the lens of cranes at rest.



In my most recent trip this last Sunday, I
caught some distant flocks of cranes coming in from miles away where they were likely feeding on grain fields in the area. Over the same mountains shown at upper left, here at left are 127 cranes (by my count) coming in for the evening. There is "strength in numbers" as they spend the evening together at Whitewater, using the water pools as protection from predators (usually coyotes). Click on the image to enlarge to full scale to see the multitudes of cranes... And at right is the standard shot of LBT glowing in the last rays of sunset from the Observatory near 11,000 feet elevation. At 80+ miles away, it is still eye-catching as it is usually parked at an angle that reflects sunlight to us birdwatchers... This frame is actually a focus-stack of 2 frames, otherwise either the birds or observatory would have been out of focus. But here 2 shots were combined to keep the sharp part of each image.


This last trip out there was a larger variety of smaller water-birds from a month ago when there were mostly just cranes. They also cruised closer to the observation platforms, so were a natural to photograph with the 500mm! At left is a long-billed dowitcher that was difficult to freeze as it was in constant motion marching and picking thru the shallow waters... And at right is an eye-catching killdeer - a common bird, but a beauty nonetheless!






And even though we're suffering through what seems like the cloudiest Fall and Winter in recent memory, I've gotten the lens out on a couple occasions for astronomical imaging. The first time I was fighting thin clouds and wasn't a good test for its capabilities. But the next time I shot a few objects and got some promising results. At left are a couple nebulae that shine by fluorescence of hydrogen resulting in a reddish glow. Commonly called the North American nebula at left and the Pelican Nebula at right, they are analogous to the glow from a fluorescent bulb, but excited not by electricity but from a bright star out of the field. This image is a stack of 17 frames totaling about 35 minutes of total exposure. The lens is extremely sharp from corner-to-corner across the full-frame 6D sensor, and I did stop it down to F/5.6 to reduce vignetting at the corners a little. But overall the results are quite good! At right is another glowing cloud of hydrogen - this one known as the Rosette Nebula, looking almost like a ghostly Christmas wreath! This one is only 10 minutes of total exposure!

So I'm impressed with the overall performance of the lens for both birding and astronomy! It will be one of my standard tools when going out on excursions, and might be just about perfect for the upcoming solar eclipse in August! But it is a sobering reality to know that it is a product of a life insurance payout... Would much rather do without it and have the presence of my bride back... But it will give me a chance to remember her every time I have it out with me!

Whitewater Draw 2010!

We finally made a trip down to Whitewater Draw yesterday to check out the current supply of sand hill cranes wintering in Arizona. I hadn't seen any numbers posted - last year's census was definitely below two years ago, so it is always with come trepidation when you turn down the access road and see in person if there are any cranes there.


The short answer is yes, we saw cranes! Lots and lots of cranes. The numbers are definitely up from last year, but at the same time, the water level looks lower and the distance from the trails and overlooks to the main gatherings seems farther. They do fly over quite frequently as they move from group to group, but with my small telescopes and lack of auto focus, the flybys are difficult shots to get. The first shot at left is of a mass ascension as a group got startled into the air as noise or a percieved threat got too near. It is amazing they don't run into each other in their rush to get airborne.


This trip we brought our friend Donna along, and also 2 more couples from the astronomy club, and they brought 2 more couples from the photography club, so we were responsible for opening up Whitewater to another dozen fans. There were lots of other birding fans there, but not really a lot for such a nice weekend. We were ready for cold temps, but long sleeves and a sweatshirt was enough to ward off the chill, though the sun was rarely out to add extra warmth.


It is always nice to see something new, and for me this trip was the yellow-headed blackbirds. I've never seen or noticed them before, but just like clockwork, they descended right at 5pm into the reed groves in the lagoons. Evidently they are closely related to the common red-winged blackbirds of the Midwest, in fact, there were a few scattered among these. The males yellow-heads in fact have white patches where the red-wings have their spot of color. Anyway, the yellow color was almost shockingly bright against the dark bodies. The female, shown at right, had less yellow on her head, more down the chest, and is missing the white chevron on the shoulder.


As I said, we'll be posting more from this trip - Melinda has yet to download hers, and with her auto focus, likely has closeups of their flybys. But it was an enjoyable day, and we stayed till well after it was too dark to shoot anymore. And even then in the growing darkness, you could still detect them (hear them more precisely) as they came in from the fields to spend the night in the safety of the water. More later!

Another Whitewater Trip

Catching up on old business - it was over a week ago now that we did what will likely be our last trip of the season to Whitewater Draw to visit with the sandhill cranes.  It is always a treat to bring people that have never been there before to show off what would seemingly be so rare in Arizona - birds that winter over in a wetland area!  We had some friends ask how to get there - how could we not offer to lead a trip?  After a stop in Tombstone for a late lunch, we hit Whitewater about 3:30.

Not a lot had changed in the 2 weeks since we'd been there, but with a little blustery wind, the cranes seemed mostly grounded.  There were a lot of birds on the ground, which tells me that they likely didn't go off during the day to feed in the nearby fields.  But while we found many thousands waiting for us, as the afternoon progressed, we did see many waves of those who did go out, come back to the wetlands.  In binoculars, it was cool to see lines of them appearing out of the cloudy sky silhouetted against distant hills.  When they landed they joined the general din of noise as they called back and forth.

Also like last time, a flurry of activity just before sunset heralded the arrival of the yellow-headed blackbirds.  They don't appear here every year, but it is certainly a banner year given the number we've seen our last 2 trips.  Their din almost drowns out that of the cranes.  Their flashes of color are certainly striking as they dart around jockeying for position in the reeds.

The picture at left shows the public parking area at Whitewater.  It shows a LOT more cars than a few weeks ago, when we pretty much had the place to ourselves.  It turns out that this weekend had been the "Wings over Willcox" crane festival.  Even with larger crowds it was great - even got to see some ginormous camera lenses - one woman had a Canon 600mm that left me with some lens-envy!

We still didn't get to see any vermilion flycatchers, the showy, scarlet highlight of most of my trips to Whitewater.  We did catch a pair of Northern Harrier hawks this trip.  I happened to be following the female when she dove for a mouse. 

Clouds thickened later in the afternoon, so we didn't get much of a sunset, and we left the area earlier than we normally do, arriving back home by 9pm.  Our work and travel schedules don't permit us to get back while the cranes are still here, so it was fun to get in another trip before they head back north.