Spent a lot of time at the Wet Lands this past weekend and had a wonderful time, simply put it was very relaxing.
Now this weekend started on Friday evening with the wife and I heading out for a nice evening walk through the wet lands. More for us to enjoy an evening out together, but I did bring my camera (300 f/2.8 and 1.4 tele-converter) to see what I could get.
Now when I'm out, especially when I have my camera I'm always looking for photo opportunities, which is this first shot. Needless to say there are bunches of bunnies around the wet lands, and this had "Take my picture" all over him.
There really wasn't much activity and after walking the area for a bit I decided to go a little further then I normally do. It was in this new area where I found this bike, which looked like it was locked against a pole, why I don't know, as you can see from this picture the bike has seen much better days. I had a general idea what I was looking for when I took this picture, although I don't think I achieved what my mind saw.
As the sun started its downward decent we started heading back. I loved the colors in the sky and how it played over the wet lands as it set over Bolsa Chica Beach. I think a shorter focal length lens would have been nice, but all I had was the 300 and 1.4 attached.
Loved how this lone palm tree stood out against the yellow and red background, especially as seen through the 300.
Now this next series of shots begin on the following morning. During the evening prior the wife and I met a gentleman who said there were a few long eared owls who frequent the heron's nesting area and that they can usually be seen suning as the sun comes up. So I woke up early and headed back to the wet lands so that I could be in position as the sun rised.
Sure enough as I approached the area I saw two rather large long eared owls perched at a heron nest. As a matter of fact one of the owls was actually in the heron's nest, which I found somewhat odd. Though I found what I was looking for I was unable to document it with pictures as it was still much to dark. So as I waited for the sun to come up one of the owls was so kind to fly to a group of branches in front of me, which put him between me and the sunrise. Knowing that when shooting wildlife you need to take shots when given the opportunity, as you never know when the subject your shooting is going to take flight or leave, I took a quick shot (which you see below). It was good thing I took this as soon after he flew off into the trees.
The rest of the moring I stayed close to the water to see what I could capture, which included a few heron's and egrets.
After a couple of hours I decided it was time for me to head home, but like I said earlier, you need to keep your eyes open as you never know what you'll see. I found this guy posing and had to take a shot.
This heron was perched just above the water and I liked how the blue looked behind him, so I positioned myself and waited for the look I wanted.
Last but not least, I finally got a nice shot of one of the hawks that frequent the area that I was happy with. So all in all I had a wonderful time and made it home feeling very relaxed.
Belted Kingfisher
Osprey
Snowy Egret
