View Halloo!

I was driving through Wenham towards one of my favorite haunts on a scouting mission for fall colors. The colors I found were unexpected, to say the least.

I ditched the car, grabbed the gear and prayed for light for it was a dark, overcast day.

However, overcast days are excellent for shooting. I don’t have to worry about harsh shadows and I can shoot any time of the day. Only if I could get some shutter speed and depth of field!

This foxhound pack has a history that goes back to 1882.

Here the Huntsman is taking the pack down between a row of maples. 300mm, f/4.0, ISO 250 and 1/40 second. But I love the colors.

The pack is at the end of the field about 300 feet away.

Up and over the hill.

Since I’m familiar with the lay of the land of the Appleton farms, I was able to catch the hunt at two road crossings. Here is the end of the hunt.

If you are curious about fox hunting, may I suggest you check out the Myopia Hunt website.

Saturday Evening Creature Feature, Common Eider

The Common Eider is, well, common here in Gloucester. It is one of the bonuses that we have. These sea ducks like the cooler waters and they are never found inland. Gregarious and social ducks, they very rarely squabble.

This time of year, they are going into the seasonal eclipse plumage. The breading season is over and the it is time to start working towards renewing the feathers.

The males coming out of their breeding plumage with start to pal around with the non-breeding males.

Even in their eclipse plumage, they will have their cool ‘57 Chevy tail fins.

When the winter comes along, they will start turning into their classic plumage. This pair was shot in January.

Be sure to check out my other Eider images.

Forgotten Photo Friday, Fog

Doing an archive dive, I found this little nugget giving it a chance to be shown for the first time. This was a foggy July day in 2010.

Schooner Bald Eagle of Gloucester Harbor

Today’s photo study focuses on the Bald Eagle, a Gloucester based schooner as it sails by Ten Pound Island Light.

American Lady on Goldenrod photo study

Today’s images are of American Lady butterflies on Goldenrod.

It’s starting! It’s starting!

There are a couple of trees where I work that began their transformation to fall colors earlier than most. Appreciable fall colors are a couple of weeks away.  Until then, these will whet your appetite.

Autumn Meadowhawks

The Autumn Meadowhawk will be one of the last dragons to survive on Cape Ann. You can find them well into November. The brown legs make the Autumn Meadowhawk an easy dragonfly to identify. These are rather young males.

Schooner American Eagle

Here are a few more images of the American Eagle from the Gloucester Schooner Festival.

One of these things is not like the other,

One of these things is not like the other,
One of these things just doesn’t belong…

Maybe you are young enough to remember the song, or perhaps you have or had young children that played this game. It’s what I thought of when I saw this picture.

It was getting late in the evening and the sun was going down. The Snowy Egrets were coming into a roost. Then a black egret came in??? It is a Little Blue Heron. We are at the very extreme north of their range on the eastern seaboard.

Little Blue Herons are classified as Egretta caerulea. Snowy Egrets are Egretta thula. So why didn’t they name this the Little Blue Egret as it looks more like an egret than a heron? Just sayin’.

A Snowy Egret with the glow of the low, setting sun.

Forgotten Photo Friday, Semipalmated Sandpiper

At the very end of August in 2008, I took these photos of Semipalmated Sandpipers hunting for tasty morsels in a bank of washed up sea vegetables. There were about six birds, including a Spotted Sandpiper and a Least Sandpiper.

I look at these photos I took four years ago and wonder if I’ve progressed since then. I don’t know. These photos set the bar pretty high. I consider it one of the my best shorebird photo-shoots ever.

Happy Friday!

Are you just going to hork that?

Jimmy T and I took a dory out on the harbor a couple of nights ago. We came upon this Double Crested Cormorant that seemed to be struggling.  He’s got himself a whopper!

I’m not sure what he’s got there and I don’t see how he’s going to get that down.

He does look rather pleased with himself.

What are you going to do with that?

Cormorants take their meals down whole. Clearly, this one’s eyes are bigger than its belly.

Then he dove down and when he came up, all that we could see was the tail sticking out of his beak.

Finally, let’s end off with a half-way decent photo.