Hummingbird

When we vacation we often stop along the way and buy some flowers. This hummingbird was appreciative of our efforts...

Canon EOS 40D

Lens: EF500mm f/4L IS USM

Shutter speed: 1/800 sec

Aperture: 6.3

ISO: 500

Subject distance: 4.4 m

Baby Green Herons at Anhinga Trail

I am always on the lookout for Green Herons when we go out photographing. I was in for a real treat when I saw the parent bring in fish to these two Baby Green Herons (on the Anhinga Trail in the Everglades). I spent hours watching and photographing these little guys...

Great Blue Herons, Courting, Mating, Nesting

These two great blue herons were getting ready for the breeding season. The male would bring in a stick and together they would figure out how to place it. He just kept bringing in stick after stick. Every few trips the male would mate with the female. The evening light and the pastel clouds against the blue sky really made the perfect background for this photograph.

Great Blue Heron

This Great Blue Heron was at the top of the island trying to attract a mate to his well built nest. Watching the breeding behavior was fascinating. He would clack his bill and raise his hear and neck and was trying to hard to appear "attractive" and dominant. You can see the bits of feathers in the air around him from his antics.

Great Blue Heron, Artistic rendition

I took hundreds of photographs of this Great Blue Heron at Wakodahatchee. The lighting and the blue pastel sky near sunset just urged me to process one artistically. I love the way the wind was blowing his feathers and plume.

Black Necked Stilt

There was a good variety of birds at Wakodahatchee this year, including, for the first time ever, breeding wood storks. What a contrast between those bird birds and these little delicate black necked stilts. I love the one leg up and the reflection.

Cormorant, breeding season

The colors of the birds can change so dramatically when it is breeding season. I made sure to capture the eyes and position the head against a blurred background when photographing this Cormorant on the Anhinga Trail in Florida. They are very habituated towards humans and will sit right on the railing for you to photograph them!

Backyard Birds -- Winter

Two birds that I photographed in my backyard during a snowstorm. I opened the window in the downstairs bathroom and shot out the window, putting a few towels down to absorb all the snow that was coming into the window.

Junco and Bluejay -- winter snowstorm

Oyster catchers

Oyster catchers are very comical and entertaining to watch. Their coloration, their calls and their behaviors make for a wonderful morning. I love the foot up and the small plant in the top photo and the beack open in the second. Gotta get up early for these birds...

Plover

We were asked to judge at the Long Island Photographic Federation. They enticed us with being able to couple the trip with some bird photography! This was taken early in the morning, just waiting by the surf for the birds to venture down. We love all kinds of photographic subjects, but birds are definitely at the top of the list!

Bluebirds

We were lucky enough to get to photograph a second brood of bluebirds. The parents were actively feeding their babies so we got to capture them in flight coming and going to the nest box.

SOOC versus post-processed

Many times the image that you envision can be captured and presented SOOC (straight out of the camera) but sometimes post-processing can improve it and create what your mind's eye saw when you clicked the shutter.

This bird (a short billed dowitcher) was taken in NH, in the field across from Polly's Pancake Parlor. The bird was facing the wrong way and I only had a 300 mm lens on. So I knew when I took the image that I would crop it and flip it...

SOOC, above, and post-processed, below

Sugar Hill, New Hamphire

Tom and I spent a long weekend (for our Anniversary) in Sugar Hill, New Hamphire -- mainly to photograph the lupine. I follow the lupine blooms via Harman's website every year, but it was great to get there this year!

We stayed at the Rustic Log Cabins, right along the stream.

We ate at Polly's Pancake Parlor all four mornings -- if you have never been there you are missing out! MMmmmmmm!

We ate at Adair Friday night, photographing their grounds during the day. Great food, but worth a visit even if you do not eat there.

The lupine were very different than the last two times that we were there, but there were lots of flowers out -- and so many different colors and color combinations. Sunday morning we photographed for three hours in a light mist and were well rewarded with great color saturation and water droplets.

This was the only moose that we saw :-) but we did see a lot of wildlife...

We saw a variety of wildlife: three bears (one up big one close), deer, turkeys, a porcupine, a common snipe (right across from Polly's pancake parlor all day), bluebirds with babies, a great blue heron, red winged blackbirds (with babies), a kingfisher (caught a fish and beat it on a branch before eating it), lots cedar waxwings, a pair loons (very close one morning), etc.

Common snipe, at Polly's

Female red winged blackbird, at Polly's

Female red winged blackbird, with baby, at Pearl Lake

We took hundreds of photographs of this pair of bluebirds feeding their young with a plethora of insects and worms.

You can see some more photos of this trip here: http://tlc.smugmug.com/gallery/8571654_Ei5Fc

Backyard Bird -- Carolina Wren

We like to take trips now and again, but often great images can be captured right in your own back yard. We both love Carolina Wrens and they do frequent the feeders in the backyard and we have had them nest in the yard on several occasions (once on the front door in a wreath, LOL).

Lisa's Osprey receives a perfect score NECCC Nature Competition

NECCC Electronic Interclub Pictorial and Nature Competitions
One of Lisa's photographs was one of four photographs used to represent the New Haven Camera Club in the Spring 2009 NECCC Electronic Interclub Pictorial and Nature Competitions.

Cuchara, Lisa-Osprey with flounder for dinner-30-1st
Special congratulations to Lisa who received a perfect 30 points and first place in the nature competition for her photograph "Osprey with flounder for dinner."
Lisa Cuchara's photograph is eligible for the Nature Photograph of the Year. The photographs of the year will be chosen by a judge from outside New England and will be announced at the awards ceremony on Sunday morning at the NECCC conference this summer.

In the nature competition the New Haven Camera Club was in first place overall again this year with 294 points.

Lisa's Osprey photograph wins BEST IN SHOW

Look here: http://www.glennie-exhibition.com/2009/bos.pdf. My Osprey photograph won BEST IN SHOW in the Glennie Memorial Nature Competiton!

The George W. Glennie Memorial Nature Interclub Exhibition was held on March 28, 2009 in the Greater Lynn Photographic Association Building, Lynn, MA. The George W. Glennie Memorial Nature Competition has been held since 1981. George was the founder and first chairman of the Merrimack Valley Camera Club nature group.

The New Haven Camera Club as a whole ranked in the top ten clubs of the 95 clubs that participated. http://www.glennie-exhibition.com/2009/2009%20Glennie%20Top%2010.pdf. The location of 95 these clubs is listed below (number of clubs is in parentheses). Each camera club submitted ten images. The maximum possible score for each image was 27 points.

Australia (12) Maine (1) Ohio (1)
Canada (5) Maryland (2) Pennsylvania (2)
Connecticut (11) Massachusetts (14) Rhode Island (1)
Delaware (1) New Hampshire (5) South Carolina (1)
Florida (5) New Jersey (6) Tennessee (1)
Georgia (1) New York (10) Texas (2)
Illinois (3) New Zealand (2) United Kingdom (5)
Kentucky (1) North Carolina (1) Virginia (2)

Canvas

We have been selling more and more canvases, both traditional photographs and fine art versions of those photographs, such as watercolors.

What is a gallery wrapped canvas?

• It is a high quality print on artist canvas.
• The canvas is stretched over custom made wood supports.
• It is available in any size.

What's so cool about gallery-wrapped canvases?

• These images can stand out boldly without the distraction of a frame
• They appear to "float" on your wall.
• You do have the option of getting the canvas framed, but it is not necessary

Here are some examples of canvases that we have printed lately...some examples are hanging on our Studio walls.

Hawk in our backyard

We have lots of squirrels in our backyard (about 15 too many!) and sometimes the hawks try to get one (we root for the hawk). This squirrel outsmarted the hawk though and hide underneath the bird feeder. Tom used the 70-200 mm lens shooting right from our bedroom window.

Lisa's Osprey Photo in WILDBIRD magazine

An award-winning photograph of an Osprey by Lisa Cuchara of Hamden, Connecticut, appears in the current issue of WildBird, a bimonthly magazine about birdwatching.

The photo shows the Osprey bringing a flounder to its a nest of chicks, and it won first place in the flight category of the birding magazine's 20th annual photo contest.

Fledging birds

This bird house is located in our butterfly garden. We checked a few weeks ago when the mother wren flew out and there were 4 eggs in the tall twig nest. Then we heard peeps and then checked inside to find 4 babies.



Sunday Tom was outside photographing flowers when he noticed the little ones getting ready to fledge. He took these in the early am and by afternoon the nest was indeed empty.