{"id":42280,"date":"2026-07-31T23:04:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T03:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/?p=42280"},"modified":"2026-07-31T23:04:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T03:04:12","slug":"grey-part-three-the-boids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/2026\/07\/grey-part-three-the-boids\/","title":{"rendered":"Grey, part three: The boids"},"content":{"rendered":"

Finally cleaning out the pics from this past weekend’s two outings, this time concentrating on the birds on a foggy morning. We’ve already gotten a decent impression of how<\/em> foggy from the previous post about it, so you understand why we have images that look like this:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"osprey
This osprey (Pandion haliaetus<\/em>) had announced its presence earlier, when another flew overhead – osprey are vocal about their territory. So it wasn’t hard to find it, though we never would have if it had just kept its beak shut. This is roughly 20 meters off, so yeah, the fog was thick.<\/p>\n

\"osprey
It remained there the entire time we were within sight, which was better than 30 minutes – and in fact, it might have been there for many hours, since we heard someone defending territory from the same general location the previous evening before sunset. Obviously, it knew we were there, but we were distant enough (and only visible through breaks in the trees) not to send it off elsewhere.<\/p>\n

There was another, out towards the end of the point we were on, perched out on a very visible branch, also disinclined to fly off. And also aware of us.<\/p>\n

\"osprey
We made it a point not to approach too closely, so we might catch it as it headed out to hunt when the light was better, or conversely, to photograph it in first light if the sun broke through, since it was in an ideal position for this. Neither actually happened. But someone else was out hunting already, quite successfully I might add.<\/p>\n

\"osprey
This one flew in and landed not very far away from the previous osprey, who appeared to take virtually no notice. While I liked this for the eye barely peeking past the pine needles, I hadn’t realized until editing it that the bird was only perched on one leg, the other held out awkwardly because of the size of the fish it had captured. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one standing like this – usually the fish is draped over the branch and the bird is standing on it.<\/p>\n

It took off and we followed it, but again, I wasn’t remembering that I’d switched off exposure compensation for shooting into the trees, so the resulting image was a bit dark, which I left as-is for the illustration because lightening it would add very little anyway.<\/p>\n

\"osprey
It was about this point that it became obvious the osprey had captured a fish, because it wasn’t visible through the viewfinders before. Bear in mind, the portraits are usually cropped, though I think this one is full-frame, and what we see through the viewfinder is much smaller than this – even if you’re on a smutphone (why you would be doing that, I don’t know, but some people are weird.) Also note the difference in the area surrounding the bird, in both pics. Even with Evaluative Metering, the ‘focus zone’ where the bird sits only gets a portion of the bird, so that becomes averaged with the background color. In the tree, it was fine – the foliage was roughly average brightness. But the sky was much brighter, the bird too small against it, so to see the bird decently, you have to adjust for the metering system ‘thinking’ the sky is the target. I tell my students, “If it’s bright, make it brighter” – doesn’t seem to make sense, until you realize the camera’s going to make it darker<\/em> to reach that mid-tone it’s programmed for;<\/strong> you’re just putting it back where it belongs.<\/p>\n

Someone else was running around out there – for once, actually not too far away and remaining in view.<\/p>\n

\"killdeer
Killdeers (Charadrius vociferus<\/em>) are notoriously shy and a bit hyperactive, and my experience with them at Jordan Lake has been seeing them briefly before they vacate the premises. so this one was being quite cooperative in running around in the shallows – not close, but obviously not too far away either. And when I say cooperative, this is ignoring how often it was running among the grasses or behind rocks and stumps, causing the autofocus to keep grabbing other things. My attempts to get it with its reflection in the water beneath were all thwarted, mostly by the foam and debris at the water’s edge, partially by the killdeer not getting alongside a large enough open patch. This view shows off the coloration decently, but now watch as we get more of a portrait angle.<\/p>\n

\"killdeer
Suddenly looks worried about something, doesn’t it? But since birds really can’t change expression, all we have is a different perspective on those facial markings, a better view of the wide eyes and some patches that resemble eyebrows to us. I love when things like this<\/a> happen…<\/p>\n

We’ll return to this guy in a moment, but first, a peek at the only other birds to show that morning (not counting the herons we’ve already seen.)<\/p>\n

\"bald
This was the only glimpse we got of a bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus<\/em>) while down there – I was kind of counting on seeing more, since the area I’m now in doesn’t present many opportunities, but admittedly this wasn’t the best time of day. We even very carefully checked the tree which had held the vomit eagle<\/a>, since we were right underneath it, but funny, the eagle was no longer there. I really have to make the effort to return during nesting and fledgling season, when the activity over the lake will be at peak.<\/p>\n

And this guy:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"black
We discovered this black vulture (Coragyps atratus<\/em>) very<\/em> close by, less than half the distance than to the killdeer, and apparently it had been there the entire time as we walked past, but we would have had to turn around to see it past the intervening foliage. It flew off soon after this, but had been there for close to an hour earlier as we walked right past it, five meters up and ten or so away, so I’m guessing the sky wasn’t light enough for it to feel safe flying, or since we weren’t looking in its direction at the time it didn’t feel as anxious. That stray downy feather provides a certain roguish air, don’t you think?<\/p>\n

And a couple of edits, tweaking the colors to reduce the fog-driven blue hues.<\/p>\n

\"osprey
Same one as earlier, this time showing that it was largely ignoring us, as well as the swarm of small insects that it appeared to be within. Originally I had taken the color tweak too far and it had an unnatural reddish hue to me – it shouldn’t be perfectly white-balanced, because the light really was blue-grey and we expect to see it slightly off in such low-contrast, muted conditions, so such changes should be subtle, and never be afraid to come back to it later and re-evaluate it.<\/p>\n

And the killdeer, as I promised:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"killdeer
This is pretty damn close to an accurate impression of their coloration – I think I replicated hazy\/light overcast conditions reasonably well;<\/strong> really cool red eyes, if you get the chance to see them, which the species normally disallows. By the way, these are medium-small songbirds, about the size of some of the larger sandpipers, and larger than a sanderling, smaller than an American robin. cute birds when you can get a good look at them.<\/p>\n

And that wraps up the outing photos, before the end of the month even – it’s going to be a lot of uploads this month, but that makes up for last month’s lack. And I still have a few more things targeted to appear, plus whatever I find when I’m sorting this now-backlog of images in the Sort folders. You know where to find them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Finally cleaning out the pics from this past weekend’s two outings, this time concentrating on the birds on a foggy morning. We’ve already gotten a decent impression of how foggy from the previous post about it, so you understand why we have images that look like this: This osprey (Pandion haliaetus) had announced its presence […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[4359,4541,6378,4542,2194,4360,3798,6377,1975,1976,8818],"class_list":["post-42280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nature","category-photo","tag-bald-eagle","tag-black-vulture","tag-charadrius-vociferus","tag-coragyps-atratus","tag-fog","tag-haliaeetus-leucocephalus","tag-jordan-lake","tag-killdeer","tag-osprey","tag-pandion-haliaetus","tag-predawn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42280"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42296,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42280\/revisions\/42296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}