If you don't have the desire or the money to travel to exotic locations and photograph lions, tigers and bears then hunting the local wildlife can be a rewarding alternative. This photo/essay is about getting out of your house and away from your car and into the natural habitat of birds.
If you have read my two previous essays about Backyard Photography and Roadside Photography and done what I suggested about learning your camera well and practicing shooting birds in flight then you should be ready to start hunting.
If you have read my two previous essays about Backyard Photography and Roadside Photography and done what I suggested about learning your camera well and practicing shooting birds in flight then you should be ready to start hunting.
I will take you to several different ponds and lakes near Flagstaff and Sedona, Arizona where different species of birds may be found. I'll describe how I get my photos, what challenges there are, the settings I use and give 'TIPS' about the how and why I do what I did.
TIP: Like most humans birds sleep at night and are thirsty and hungry when they wake up and head for water to drink and feed. So, I typically photograph in the early morning from sun-up for two or three hours at the most. There are other reasons to shoot early: The light is warm and at the best angle to keep shadows at a minimum, there are fewer people about to scare the birds, and there is less wind to create problems.
TIP: Locate lakes, ponds or puddles to photograph at. You may have to do some exploring and research. Obviously there are lakes you see next the the highways and some of there are great places to shoot. I've also found ponds and sinkholes I didn't know existed by looking at national forest maps, flying around on the Google Earth computer program and by reading historical books.
WARNING: Because of the volcanic geology, particularly around Flagstaff, many of the water holes are surrounded by deep, sticky mud. It's easy to sink in it and have your shoes and socks sucked off as you struggle to extract your leg from the stinky muck. I learned this from experience.
Frances Short Pond is the Flagstaff City Pond near downtown. It isn't large but many ducks and geese hang out there because they are used to people feeding them. It's fairly easy to capture some good photos of birds landing and taking off at any time of day year 'round.
TIP: A special thing about Frances Short Pond is it's one of two public ponds in town that have agitators in them that keep some areas free of ice during the winter. Some birds will populate the ponds all winter instead of migrating south. Birds on ice make for some interesting photos.
TIP: I plan ahead and position all of my photography shoots so the sun is coming from behind me. I don't want shadows interfering with a shot. I check the weather before I go and I just don't shoot on cloudy or windy days.
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| 1/1250 sec. f/10 ISO-640 |
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| The hole in the ice gets crowded. |
TIP: Use Aperture Priority for shooting stationary subjects. If you need a faster shutter speed you can open the aperture more or just increase the ISO setting.
Walnut Canyon Lakes (a.k.a. the Duck Ponds) in East Flagstaff is the second pond with agitators and water fowl can be found there year round. Sightings of bald eagles and osprey are also common there in the spring and summer months.
It is actually two lakes next to each other connected by a short stream. It works well to stand between the two and photograph birds in flight as they fly back-and-forth between the lakes. It's great practice and you might get some great shots.
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| 1/1600 sec. f/11 ISO-640 |
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| 1/1600 sec. f/11 ISO-640 |
TIP: If you're using a zoom lens set it at its widest focal length and keep it focused on infinity. Find your target in the sky and zoom in on it after your camera autofocus locks on to it. If you lose your target and your camera starts searching for focus, look at any part of the landscape that's near infinity and press the shutter button halfway to refocus then release the shutter. Only when you reacquire your target should you refocus. You're shooting at a moving target so this needs to be done quickly before the opportunity for a shot is lost.
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| 1/1000 sec. f/14 ISO-1600 |
TIP 7: A bird flying across your field of vision is much easier to focus on than one flying towards you that is quickly getting closer.
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| 1/800 sec. (to slow) f/9 ISO- 200 |
TIP: Use Shutter Priority for shooting subjects in motion. If you need a faster shutter speed just increase the ISO. A fast enough shutter speed to stop the motion of wings depends on where they are in the stroke. If a wing is at the top or bottom of its stroke it is essentially stopped so 1/1250 will probably freeze the motion of the entire bird. If the wings are in the middle of the stroke it might take a shutter speed of 1/2500 or more.
Kachina Wetlands is located south of Flagstaff about five miles next to the expressway I-17. It is a grassy marsh with several small ponds scattered throughout. One small pond right next to the frontage road is a favorite spot for ducks and geese in the winter. It is directly fed by a fresh water spring that keeps it from freezing over completely.
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| 1/2000 sec. f/8 ISO-500 |
TIP: Don't zoom in too close. Leave room to crop. It's also easier to track a flying bird if you zoom back a little bit.
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| 1/4000 sec. f/6.3 ISO-400 The white background is snow. |
TIP: Handling a tripod in cold weather can be unbearable. Buy conductive gloves so you and still use the touch screen on your camera.
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| Bottoms up! |
Upper Lake Mary Mudflats: One weekend in June, 2016 I wanted to get some landscape photos looking down on Upper Lake Mary from the top of Anderson Mesa. I hiked up there and found a few places where there was a clear view of the lake through the pine trees. At home I looked at the enlarged photos on my computer monitor and noticed there were a number of birds at the mudflats.
The mudflats are at the far south end of Upper Lake Mary but if the lake is full they are under water. The lake has to be six or more feet down at the concrete dam before the flats are exposed. By mid-summer the flats dry out and short weeds cover it like a carpet where you can safely walk on it without sinking into the mud.
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| Upper Lake Mary Mudflats. |
The six white circles surround Great Blue Herons, the three yellow ones encircle flocks of Canada Geese and the red X is where I set up a photo blind.
Late afternoon on the following Friday I hiked a chair and tent blind out to a peninsula at the mudflats and staked it down. The tent is actually an Ameristep Pop-up outhouse and it has a zipper window on all four sides and a chair fits comfortably inside it. There are many other blind tent brands and designs but I like this because I can stand up in it, its small and light and only cost about $55 dollars.
I left the tent overnight and the next morning woke up at 2:30 am. That gave me an hour and a half to pack my camera equipment, stop for coffee and a doughnut and drive 20 miles out to the lake. Using a flashlight I hiked the quarter-mile out to the tent in the dark. I took a Nikon D5300 camera with a 200-500mm lens, a 1.4 extender, a monopod, food and water. I was in the tent by 4:30 am at first light.
TIP: Be first on the scene. It may be a drag but getting up early, allowing for any stops, drive time and walking to the shooting location before any wildlife arrives is paramount for a successful shoot.
I fell asleep in the tent until the flap of wings woke me up at sun-up. Over the next three hours I took these photos. The birds took no notice of the lens sticking out the window or of any noise I made.
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| Crawdad for breakfast |
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| Running and flapping the wings stirs up crawdads. |
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| A male attempts to impress a female which ignores him. |
Lower Lake Mary only fills when the dam overflows from Upper Lake Mary so some years the lower lake is just a small pond. If the upper lake does overflow into the lower lake the water will back up into the grass lands and the old Walnut Creek channel that winds through the valley. If there is enough water the Arizona Department of Game and Fish will stock the lower lake with trout. The fish are what attract the herons.
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| Upper Lake Mary dam over-flow. |
When Great Blue Herons hunt fish and crawdads they need to stand in shallow water. This is why Lower Lake Mary and the mudflats of the upper lake attract the birds.
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| A battle over feeding grounds. |
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| A drill to the head... |
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| and defeat. |
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| 1/1250 sec. f/10 ISO-500 |
I arrived at Lower Lake Mary at sunrise and approached the lake through some cottonwood trees. I hid behind a large fallen branch and set up a tripod. Herons were flying in to hunt but they didn't notice me.
TIP: The problem I had was my longest lens at the time was a 55-300mm. After taking the photos of the battling herons I realized I needed to buy a longer lens. I bought a used Tamron 150-600mm for $900. It worked well but would not fit my Nikon 1.4 teleconverter. Because of that I bought a 200-500mm Nikon lens which when it's coupled to the 1.4 teleconverter becomes a 280-700mm lens.
Ashurst Lake is a popular fishing lake 25 miles southeast of Flagstaff. At this lake I photograph from a kayak which enables me to shoot towards the eastern shore where the water is shallower and the rising sun is at my back. I've found the majority of water birds along the eastern shore but Bald Eagles and Osprey are often seen roosting in dead trees surrounding the lake.
Shooting from a kayak sounds risky but I've come up with a system that works well. I use an inflatable kayak which is nearly impossible to tip over. The greatest risk comes when getting in or out of the kayak so I put my camera and a 55-300mm lens in a dry bag on shore next to the water. Once I'm settled in the kayak I'll retrieve the dry bag from shore.
TIP: Insure your big ticket items such as your cameras and lenses. For only $140 dollars per year at a reputable insurance company it protects against any damage and theft. It's already paid for itself when my tripod, D500 camera and 18-140mm lens was knocked over by a gust of wind on a night shoot.
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| I found this garter snake swimming in the lake. |
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| 1/2500 sec. f/8 ISO-1250 |
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| 1/3200 sec. f/6.3 ISO-500 |
1/3200 sec. f/6.3 ISO-500
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| 1/4000 sec. f/6.3 ISO-500 |
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| Juvenile and adult bald eagles. |
Schulz Lake is a relative unknown bird refuge hidden away in the Coconino National Forest west of Garland Prairie between Williams and Flagstaff. It is a birding paradise and one of my favorite lakes to photograph at. It's a bit of a challenge to find, the road ends at a small parking lot and no lake is in sight. There's a 700 foot walk through the pine trees to the lake and carrying a kayak with all the necessary gear by yourself is a workout.
A walk around the lake is even more difficult, it's rough and rocky and there is no trail. I've had the most success putting in near the dam and photographing from my kayak. I've rarely seen anyone there and it's very peaceful.
CAUTION: The mud at Scholz Lake is horrible. I take a few square feet of old carpeting to stand on to get in and out of my kayak.
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| Speared a fish. |
TIP: Stop down the exposure meter a full step for birds with white patches so they don't wash out.
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| To close to a nest and under attack. |
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| Double-crested Cormorant |
TIP: All of the photos above I took from my kayak. With the sun at my back I'll stop about 50 feet from shore, drop anchor and wait for something to show up.
Several years ago my wife Diane read a historical account of a woman who moved to the area in the early 1900's who described Scholz Lake, a small reservoir hidden in the forest near Parks, Arizona. I located it on Google Earth but before that I didn't know it existed.
Bubbling Springs at the small community of Page Springs is a fish hatchery and bird sanctuary. There are a number of ponds and a 1.5 mile nature trail that winds around the grounds and next to Oak Creek. A wide variety of birds have been seen throughout the year. It is managed by the Arizona Game and Fish Department and the public is welcome during daylight hours.
There isn't any vegetation around the ponds and camouflage blinds are not allowed so it is difficult to get very close to most of the water birds, but with persistence and patience I've was able to capture some good photos. To get the photo below I laid on the ground in a Mesquite thicket for 12 hours over four different days. Using a 500mm lens it finally paid off.
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| Great Blue Heron and fish 1/3200 sec. f/7.1 ISO-1000 500mm lens |
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| Black-crowned Night Heron |
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| Mallard Duck 1/3200 sec. f/6.3 ISO-800 500mm lens |
Spring Creek Tank is not on any map but I found it in the desert west of Sedona as I was flying around on Google Earth looking for water holes. It has no official name it's just what I call it. It's just a small, muddy cattle pond only 20 feet across but it turned out to be one of the best photo shoots I've had.
I set up my camera on a tripod with a Wimberly gimbal head. I sat on the ground and pulled a black blanket over my head so only the lens stuck out. Since the birds would land in the small trees on the east side of the pond before flying down to the edge of the water, I shot in the afternoon so there wouldn't be any shadows from the trees.
A flock of about one hundred blue birds would land in the mesquite trees next to the pond. After a few minutes one would drop down to the water as a scout to see if it was safe then the rest would follow in mass. After about 15 minutes of frantic drinking and socializing on the ground they would suddenly all take off as one and be gone for about 30 minutes. This pattern repeated over and over again for hours.
TIP: When there's lots of action switch to the continuous shutter release mode. Use it in short bursts of 20 or so shots then release. This technique allows time for the photo buffer to download onto the memory card.
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| Western Bluebird |
TIP: Adjust the camera to shutter priority mode and adjust the shutter speed by changing the ISO.
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| Bluebird Ballerina 1/2000 sec. f/8 ISO 800 |
TIP: Small birds move and flap their wings faster than larger birds. Set the camera to shutter priority mode then increase the ISO to increase the shutter speed to 1/3200 or even more.
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| Northern Flicker |
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| Cardinal |
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Sage Thrasher 1/3200 sec. f/5.6 ISO 400
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| Mountain Bluebird |
TIP: Keep extra batteries close at hand, seconds matter.
TIP: If you shoot in continuous RAW mode it will slow down your frame-rate-per-second and can fill the image buffer storage faster than the images can be written onto the memory card. It's really frustrating when the camera stops taking photos until the memory card can catch up. There are three solutions. Switch out of RAW, shoot in shorter bursts and use the fastest read/write speed memory cards you can find.
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| 1/2000 sec. f/8 ISO 800 |
TIP: These small birds fly to fast and erratic to follow them with the cameras autofocus tracking feature. So to capture them landing I mounted the camera on a tripod and manually focused the camera a couple of inches past the log. I had previously watched several birds land on it. I connected a 6 foot cable shutter release to the camera and watched the scene without looking through the camera. When I saw a bird flying toward the log I pressed and held the shutter release cable. I weeded out the misses later.
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| Family Portrait |
Unfortunately the pond is totally dependent on snow and rain run off and dried up after a few months. The blue birds left and have not come back. The water did come back during the next monsoon season but the birds have not as yet.
Dragonflies and Damselflies aren't birds but the techniques for photographing them is similar. They also like to be near water because they feed on the insects that like water. The best places I've found to find dragonflies are small pools and stagnant puddles with aquatic plants and weeds growing in them. Plunge pools at road culverts and sink holes are great places.
TIP: Bring plenty of bug repellent and sit quietly next to the pool and wait to see what shows up.
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| Four Spotted Skimmer |
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| Variegated Meadowlark |
TIP: Insects don't recognize the human form but are startled by sudden motion. I've found that if I move slowly I can get within a few feet of the insects most of the time. I use a 55-300mm lens.
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| Flame Skimmer |
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| Green Darner with morning dew on it's wings. |
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| Blue-tailed Damselfly |
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| Blue Dasher 1/1250 sec. 6.3 ISO-1600 This photo was a challenge. I wanted to capture a dragonfly in flight which took several hours and hundreds of shots. |
Hunting wildlife for photography can take considerable time and energy. Animals do not appear on time, stand in the right place, hold still, pose for a second shot or care about the background. The opportunity for a good photograph is often fleeting. But when I capture a good photograph I find it exhilarating and all the effort becomes worthwhile. All it takes is a little practice, persistence and infinite patience.
Things to think about.
- Pack food and water.
- Pack extra camera batteries.
- Turn off your phone.
- What is the weather forecast?
- What is the temperature?
- What is the wind speed?
- Is there snow on the ground?
- Will water be frozen?
- Is it muddy?
- Is it hunting season?
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