When Things Go Bad … !

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Today’s post:  When thing go bad, they sometimes still yield wonderful and interesting results! Over the past two weeks, I have immersed myself in a wonderful nature experience. I have been in south Texas, photographing our wintering Whooping Cranes along the Gulf Coast at their wintering grounds in Aransas NWR. Having captured nearly 4,000 images, I still have a lot of downloading and editing to do, but hope to have some of the whooping crane images on my blog very soon (hint: maybe Wednesday)!

Today’s post features a few of the images I captured on my way home from this road trip. As I entered southwest Missouri, I decided to stop to photograph some of the wintering Short-eared Owls that have been reported in the area. But after waiting and hiking for a couple of hours, no owls ever took flight over the prairie lands. I suspect that the rather strong winds were grounding them for the evening. But as so often happens, lemons give rise to lemonade!

A magnificent sunset fell across the western sky:

Sunset falling over Shawnee Trails CA

Sunset falling over Shawnee Trails CA

Shortly after the sunset subsided, I turned around to see the full moon rising over the eastern sky:

Full Moon rising over Shawnee Trails CA

As is usual with nature, you can never anticipate what will happen! Sometimes the result is minimal. But sometimes a wonderful, unexpected encounter is the result!

Stay tuned for some whooping crane images!

Photographic Equipment Used:

  • Canon 5D Mark III body
  • Canon 100-400mm, f/4.5-f/5.6 IS lens
  • Handheld, with IS “On” (and braced against my car)
  • ISO 500 (all images)
  • Aperture f/16 (all images)
  • Shutter 1/20 sec. (sunset), and 1/8 sec. (moon)

 

 

Posted in Nature Photography, Travel Photography
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