Blog Archives
Immature Eagle
Friends, This immature bald eagle was trying to have a little snack on a roadkill, but i was patiently sitting across the road and he remained in this tree until i went away. smart bird, but he was still snacking a few days later when i passed again, but I had taken this image so I did not stop. The ponds and lakes are all frozen this time of year so his fishing food source is not available. Bald eagles will scavenge what food is available and an occasional deer carcass means survival. His varied feathering marks him as a juvenile bird. The bald eagle gains his all-white head and tail over a period of five years His pate is turning a white but still has a strong eye stripe and a dark bill. I am not a birding expert so I will not venture a guess at the age of this eagle. til Tomorrow MJ
Lake Superior Gull
Friends, this seagull is standing on a cement wall over Lake Superior and I liked the image and so will share the original and the altered image in an animated gif. I used a mask to limit my changes to the bird only so I didn’t sharpen the background and make it more noisy. Experimenting with photoshop so I can make adjustments faster and more decisively. Looking at the altered image I may have overdone the feather detail of the belly, but i like what i did with the chest and head. Maybe a 50% mask of the lower part of the bird would help. Hmmmmm. So the image below is a 50% mask on the lower belly feathers so those feathers don’t look like they were combed through. til Tomorrow MJ
Redpoll at my Feeder
Friends, this is another animated gif showing the adjustments that i made to this image, so that the image follows my rules more closely. In short, I simplified the background and darkened a bit, cleaned up the eye, lightened the shadow on the front of the bird, and cleaned up the food on his bill and ran detail extractor from Color Effex Pro 4. I am learning a lot from Arthur Morris website Birdsasart, his site makes good reading for the curious (like me). This is one of the Redpolls who come to my bird feeder every day. Winter is my time to study up for the other three seasons. til Tomorrow MJ
Weekly Photo Challenge:Resolved
Friends, this Northern Goshawk is showing some attitude, much like myself this past year. My sister has a saying for the condition, “no fuse, no filter”. This year 2013 I am going to try to change my attitude a bit and be a bit more mellow. Hopefully this bird will help to remind me that bad attitude doesn’t always get fed, when you are a grown-up, you just get kicked out of the nest. til Tomorrow MJ
Harrier Portrait
Friends, More book images to work on, this image of a Harrier was tilted so the bird looked wrong. In straightening the image I found that two corners were white background, selecting the white corners, i filled with content-aware. This did a pretty good job of filling the background area, but still had to clone some texture in, after cropping the image, the headroom needed to be increased. So much for the photoshop details, if you need more, just ask. The plumage of this bird and his lemon-yellow eyes mark him as a semi-adult. His gray feathers around his ruff are just starting to appear and when he is totally adult, his back feathers will be very gray. He looks like an owl with his facial disk, but he is a Harrier. til Tomorrow MJ
Before and After
Friends, today I am processing more images for my book on Hawk Ridge, this image of a Northern Goshawk grabbed me but i didn’t have a solution for the problem of no space at the top of the bird’s head. Arthur Morris to the rescue, on his blog Birdsasart, he just gave a video tutorial on adding space that was dynamite for me, you can see his video at: http://www.birdsasart-blog.com/2013/01/01/free-photoshop-tutorial-video-i-how-did-that/ . Thanks Artie, In short I also used the detail extractor from Color Effex Pro 4 and used a layer mask to add the details only to the bird. the top image is right out of the camera (raw) and the second is after processing. til Tomorrow MJ
Old and New
Friends, these are flight feathers from a redtail hawk at the border between old feathers and new feathers, the old has signs of wear on the edges and the new have a smooth edge. This is a sight that few of us get to see, unless we frequent Hawk Ridge and then study higher magnifications of the wings. The older feathers are browner and might even be juvenal feathers left over when the bird had its first molt. The very top feather shows a notch that is present on the outer primary flight feathers of the wing, so this is the left wing and we are looking at the underside of the wing. I am busy studying the molts and feathers to see what i can learn, lots to learn. til Tomorrow MJ
Weekly Photo Challenge:Changing Seasons
Friends, As the seasons change, more birds become visible After the leaves are gone, these Ruffed Grouse blend into their brown surroundings but are more visible cause they seek out the fall berries on leafless bushes. On my way home from Crex I saw some Ruffed Grouse foraging along the roadside. When i pulled over and jumped out of my vehicle, they quickly hid in the brush. I followed for awhile and this one jumped up in a bush and was busy plucking some small berries for his supper. I got within ten feet of him and shot this image. When he realized that i might be a threat, his feathered crest raised and that is why he is called a Ruffed Grouse. This was a difficult image to obtain because of all the little brushy branches that insisted on getting into the picture, blocking various parts of the bird. I worked at it for about 30 minutes, then my hands were too cold to go on. til Tomorrow MJ
Weekly Photo Challenge:Reflections
Friends, the reflections in this Cooper Hawk’s eye show off his brilliant yellow eye. He is a juvenile and when he is one year old, this eye color will shift to an orange, then to red as he ages further. The shadow from the supraorbital ridge above his eye makes him look very fierce. I love the feathering patterns around that reflected highlight in his eye, a reflection of the sky. til Tomorrow MJ
Another Sparrow
Friends, this chipping sparrow ( i think) also comes to you from Hawk Ridge. The migration of the passerines is also monitored from Hawk Ridge The smaller birds are counted and some are banded as they pass through and get some seed at the feeders. This bird was busy munching on sunflower seeds as I crept close enough for a portrait. I love their tiny feathers around the face. til Tomorrow MJ
MJ Springett 