It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. As an amateur photographer I have often said just that. You will of course have already clicked on this photo so that you can see a larger, and perhaps clearer version of this photo. Now that you have, what do you see? Can you weave a 1,000 word story of what you see? What about a couple hundred words on how you feel when you look at this photo? Surely a few dozen on description alone. Look at the eye. The concentration. The feathers, called primaries, at the tip of the wings. What about the legs tucked up to increase aerodynamics. The bird appears to be hovering, about to dive on its' prey. See how the light is catching the bird, illuminating the underside of the wing and the body. See how easy this is? Maybe a few hundred words on description would be pretty easy. What you cannot include in your story is the moment when this Northern Harrier glided across the flooded alfalfa field that is covered (easily hundreds of birds) with White-face Ibis, Long-billed Curlew, Greater Yellowlegs, Kildeer, Long-billed Dowitcher, Great-tailed Grackle and Least Sandpipers, turning into the afternoon sun and gliding right towards our location (inside our 4Runner) and flared, almost hovering 40 feet from our location before drifting casually off to our left leaving a field of very nervous birds to continue feeding in the recently harvested alfalfa field.
Add all that to the excitement of the photographer (me) who has had this hawk in his viewfinder for 20 seconds prior to this particular shot, and has already shot 10 to 20 frames, focus locked on to the approaching bird hoping that the hawk would flare and expose its' underside. Silly as it sounds my heart rate was elevated shooting this particular sequence of shots. I knew at the time that I had probably captured a few decent "bird in flight" shots of this hawk. I always have high expectations which, sadly, are often not achieved. In this case, things turned out pretty well and I am happy with this one good shot.
The shoot on Verrado Way, in the farm fields west of Phoenix about 90km from our home in Mesa was actually the last stop on what was a busy day of birding. Dana, Carl, Marcus and I hit the Thrasher Spot early in the morning. It was not as productive as it was the last time we were there but we did observe 2 Le Conte's Thrashers which were new species for this year. We also picked up a Brewer's Sparrow, also new for this year. We also had a quick walk at Tres Rios Wetlands which was also not very "birdy". This was likely due to the time of day as opposed to any other reason. Carl and Marcus had to return to Phoenix after our stop at Tres Rios so Dana and I head back to Verrado Way, where we had briefly stopped earlier in the day. The number and variety of species in that one field was incredible. We parked on the side of the road and watched for over 1 1/2 hours. It was like watching a nature show on TV. Simply amazing. We are already planning our return.....
Here are a couple of other photos from Verrado Way. I hope you enjoy them.
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| Long-billed Curlew and Greater Yellowlegs |
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| Long-billed Curlew |
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| Long-billed Dowitcher |
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| White-faced Ibis |
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| Carl, Barry and Marcus at the Thrasher Spot. Yes, I am wearing gloves. Don't laugh, it was cold. It may be 80F in the afternoon, what was your temperature today? but it is coolish overnight...... |
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| Marcus with Carl's 600mm prime lens..... Damn, I want one!!!!! |
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