El Día de las Aves

El Día de las Aves, of course, means The Day of the Birds. I've had birds scattered throughout these posts, but this post is different... it's all about the birds. 

Specifically, all these pictures were taken on the 2 1/2 hour Ocracoke - Cedar Island ferry crossing. I did work in a nap after wearing myself out, but I spent much of the trip entertaining Pat and the other passengers with my efforts to get mugshots of the intercoastal avian community. It's really not as simple as one might expect, though regular practice would help, I'm sure.

First of all, just looking up is a challenge for some of us with balance issues, so I generally try to lean against my pickup or some suitably stout infrastructure. Then, on the ferry, the wind is trying to blow you overboard. And, of course, there's the ability of the birds to change headings and altitudes with no warning whatsoever.

Before I really got started, Pat suggested I get a picture of "Bird Island", which I would otherwise have missed. I'm glad he did; that's a lot of birds. . .

Now, back to my performance. Using a point and shoot camera's LCD to follow an elusive gull would allow one to maintain some situational awareness because one can make use of his or her peripheral vision. If, on the other hand, one is trying to shoot with an SLR - one eye stuck in the viewfinder and the other blocked by the camera and one's hands - a photographer's got a real handicap to deal with.

With a wide-angle, you can keep the subject bird(s) in the frame with minimal effort. Zooming in to get close-ups, however, carries its own hazards. The SLR photographer, with the big lens zoomed in for the close-up, chases his target across the sky with many of the same sensations of a B-17 ball turret gunner.

I found that standing against the pickup trying to maintain my balance (which the guy in the ball turret didn't have to do) and keep the feathered bogey in the crosshairs can lead to some pretty wild gyrations on my part.

By the time I got this picture of the enemy trying to escape into the afternoon sun, I was nearly standing on my head (and sliding against the fender of the pickup). The sudden glare of the sun in the viewfinder made me break off my attack. Luckily for me, I was able to recover before I crashed. It was intense, but I managed to come through unscathed.

Since I got back home I've been studying all these birds pretty carefully, but this one has me baffled. Where does he stow his landing gear?

And there's another thing I don't understand. There are seagulls everywhere. Where'd all the pelicans go? (That's a rhetorical question, Stephen.)

This looks like a good place to end. Pat and I arrived at the Cedar Island landing well before sundown and made it to Morehead City just about dark so we didn't have the sun in our eyes for too long on the drive back to Wilson. But, despite a number of naps during the day, both of us were ready to crash on arrival.