Category Archives: Photography

Bee on a rock rose

May 8, 2018 joe Leave a comment

Today I learned how bees carry pollen after I took pictures of some in our front yard: it’s that yellow glob on this guy’s rear flank. I also learned (Wikipedia: Honey Bee Defense) that honey bees kill intruding wasps by “balling” them, surrounding them to overheat the wasps and deprive them of oxygen. Stingers are mostly reserved for vertebrates.

Animals, Bay Area, Birds, Photography

Bird Portraits

December 21, 2017 joe Leave a comment

I have been working on taking pictures of birds using a portrait lens. These are all taken usually next to a dish of seed. Gear is a Olympus Micro Four Thirds camera (EPM-2) with Oly 45 mm f/1.8 lens (90 mm on a 35mm); Pixel Oppilas remote; Amazon basics tripod or Smallrig clamp tripod.

Dark-Eyed Junco, Oregon subspecies, male.

Photography

Protected: College Cove

April 10, 2017 joe

Birds, Photography

Sunol and Coyote Hills Birds

March 11, 2017 joe Leave a comment

These are all from either Coyote Hills Regional Park, or the Maguire Peaks Loop Trail in Sunol Regional Wilderness, except for the scrub jay who was in my backyard.

Scrub Jay, my backyard in Oakland, California.

American Kestrels hanging on in a stiff breeze, Coyote Hills.

Northern Flicker in the wind, Coyote Hills.

Photography, Politics

Women’s March Oakland

January 21, 2017 joe Leave a comment

Looking good today, Oakland. 60,000 people marched (that’s 15% of the population of the city!) no arrests, lots of good signs.

Animals, Bay Area, Bicycles, Birds, Photography, Travel

Bay Trail Bike Birding

September 28, 2014 joe 2 Comments

After reading The Thing With Feathers and then Feathers: The Evolution of a Natural Miracle, I started being more interested in birds. Then I bought a Sibley Guide, and it got a little more serious.

I’ve always enjoyed the Bay Trail, on several occasions riding SF to Berkeley or the reverse. This weekend I rode from approximately Fruitvale BART to Hayward BART, going through MLK regional shoreline, Oyster Bay Regional Shoreline, and Hayward Regional Shoreline, and I brought my camera. When I’d ridden the trail before I’d often stopped to read the informational signs about birds, and I was surprised that I was able to photograph pretty much all the common birds I’d read about, plus several more. And a bat ray.

Light-morph juvenile Red tailed hawk above Oyster Bay Regional Shoreline.

Bat ray! I was surprised to see this guy in a corner of San Leandro Bay, on Doolittle drive across from the Oakland Airport.

American Avocets. I think these were in Hayward, but there were also some on the north side of Oyster Bay RS.

Western Sandpipers, I think juveniles, in Hayward RS.

Definitely a tern, and I’m thinkin a Forster’s Tern based on the long tail feathers.

Willets in flight. They are very gray on the outside, but have sporty black and white inner wing pattern.

Willets also have a distinctive head-bobbing motion when feeding, like they are trying to get a better parallax perspective on what’s underwater.

Willet leaving a trail wading in Hayward RS.

Northern Shoveler and an American Avocet together.

Black-legged stilt in flight, Hayward RS.

Short-billed Dowitcher flock, with some other birds mixed in, Hayward Regional Shoreline.

Photography, Travel

American Southwest Pictures

January 8, 2013 joe Leave a comment

New pictures of the American Southwest roadtrip — Berkeley, California to Pagosa Springs, Colorado, are now up on xenotropic.net. This was the first time in years that I’ve taken out my SLR, and it was a fun time and place to take pictures. The full moon helped to create some eerie effects, particularly at the Grand Canyon. Suzanne made me a tripod carrier for Christmas, which was great to make it easier to bring the tripod along everywhere. I got several pictures including constellations — Big Dipper and Pleiades. We also got started on winter camping, including camping in the snow at the Grand Canyon.