The Traveling Widower

Tag: nature

  • Maybe I Should Specialize in Bird Photography

    A cheerful man stands in a forest by a lake, using binoculars to observe birds. He wears a vest with a badge and holds a camera, surrounded by various bird species perched on trees and the ground. Generated with Google Gemini

    February 7th, 2026

    I really do need to stop taking pictures for a while and start prepping for my next trip, just two weeks away. But I’m a compulsive obsessive type, and it’s hard for me to stop doing something I actually enjoy. Like walking around in nature preserves and taking photographs. 

    Last week, before I had my knee procedure, I spent a wonderful 3 hours hiking and photographing birds at the Cosumnes River Preserve – I got some nice images, but that short trip was more about just being out in a beautiful spot. Fast forward to Friday – my knee was still sore, but I really wanted to get out of the house for a while. Walking was OK, and the weather was still great, so another outing to the preserve seemed like a good idea.

    The nice thing about photography close to home, is that you can try out new things, or correct mistakes you made the last time you visited the place, unlike most of my trips where every day is a new location, with totally different lighting conditions. So this time, I brought a tripod instead of the monopod for increased stability of my big, heavy camera and lens, and I shifted to shutter speed priority, since I had quite a few shots which were a bit blurred. The lighting was not too bad, but the birds all move around a lot, especially when they are feeding. I also wanted to focus on lighting this time and avoid shooting into the glare, and also stay there long enough to get that nice, warm sunset lighting. That turned into a long list. 

    Earlier in the week, there were only a few die-hard birders and hikers at the preserve. This time, on a Friday night, there were gobs of high-school age kids, all carrying binoculars and clip-boards. I’m guessing this was some type of class assignment. Birding 101? Who knew? It seems like the viewing area is also popular for couples who want to take posed selfies at sunset. Whatever. 

    Sometimes with photography, you just luck out – the lighting is perfect and the beasties are cooperative. Well, this was one of those days for me. There were a few birds which I had not seen the day before (Black Necked Stilts, Dowitchers) and a few that were within camera range (Pintail Ducks). The Coots, geese and other waterfowl were all present and active as well. And the lighting was getting better and better as the sun was setting. I wound up shooting about 400 images, with a higher percentage of keepers than I normally get. And quite a few are worth entering for competition and contests. I’ve just started curating with Adobe Lightroom, but here are a few of them.

    A common coot swimming on a calm water surface, reflecting its image in the water.
    A blackbird with vibrant red shoulder patches perched on a branch, singing against a blurred background of water and vegetation.
    A wading bird standing in shallow water with reflections visible, surrounded by green vegetation and wetland plants.
    A greater white fronted goose standing in shallow water with its reflection visible in the calm surface.
    A black-necked stilt wading in shallow water, reflecting on the surface, surrounded by sparse vegetation.
    A male teal duck swimming in calm water, featuring a distinctive green head, reddish-brown face, and gray body with black and white wing accents.
    A white fronted goose standing in water with its wings outstretched, showcasing its plumage, set against a blurred natural background.
    A pair of white fronted geese in a pond, one stretching its wings while the other is submerged, with greenery in the background.
    A female pin tail duck swimming in calm water, creating gentle ripples on the surface.
    A duck swimming in calm water, with visible ripples and reflecting its image on the surface.
    A northern pintail duck swimming in calm water, creating ripples as it moves.
    A black-necked stilt wading through shallow water, surrounded by aquatic plants and reflections.

    My personal favorites are the Pintail Ducks – pretty much everything is perfect technically, and the level of detail is awesome. Something to do with that 55 megapixel sensor. The higher shutter speed also caught drops and streams of water mid-air. One or two of these will make for nice additions to my growing gallery of acrylic prints. I’ll make room for them somewhere. 

    As for getting into serious birding….nah. I’d have to start remembering all the names, something I’m not very good at. (Fortunately, Google does a good job of identifying them). I’m more of a generalist when it comes to nature and landscape photography. No specialities, just whatever shows up in the viewfinder. 

    Thought for the day: I am spending a small fortune on these adventures, traveling around the world, taking thousands of photographs, most of which I wind up deleting. Then I go to a small nature reserve 50 minutes from my house, and get all kinds of great images. If only there were penguins in the Central Valley, I might not travel as much. But wait…there they are!  

    A water tower with a sign reading 'Welcome to Sacramento, America's Farm-to-Fork Capital,' surrounded by trees and a blue sky, with a group of penguins walking nearby. AI generated using Gemini

    No more posts until I’m back from petting the Grey Whales in Baja.

    Peace

  • A Late Afternoon Photo Hike

    Great White Fronted Geese, swimming in line at the Cosumnes River Preserve

    February 3, 2026

    It has been about 2 months since my return from Antarctica, and I’m pretty much bouncing off the walls to be somewhere else. Just like my wife had happy feet when it came to moving every year or two, I have my limits for living the Eleanor Rigby life here in Gold River. I did get away for my little jaunt over to the coast, but that was a few weeks ago, and I still have almost three weeks until my serious travels begin anew. So, to preserve my sanity, and to get myself out of the funk I’ve been in since the holidays, I decided an outing was in order today. I need to fill these long gaps going forward. Or pad the walls in my bedroom.

    Last month, I had signed up for a photo outing at the Cosumnes River Preserve with the photography club I belong to but was “fogged out” from that. I still wanted to go there since I’ve never been there before, and I thought it might be a good place to see Sandhill Cranes. Plus, I really wanted to try out some of my gear. Practice makes perfect so they say (who is “they”?). Late afternoon lighting was recommended for photographing birds at this location, so I headed out for the back-roads path at 2:30 – it’s fun zig-zagging through the farm communities to get there, although some of the roads are really beat-up. Too many tractors and big rigs I guess.

    The preserve runs along Franklin Road, south of Elk Grove near I-5, with a visitor center and trails on the East side, and more trails with larger wetlands on the West side. It’s a pretty easy drive from where I live, about 50 minutes depending on how many tractors are on the roads. 

    As I approached the river, I could see large flocks of waterfowl on either side, and quite a few cars pulled alongside the road. Birders no doubt. I’m not one by the way – I really like photographing them, but cannot remember the names at all. My brother was a master birder, as is his wife, and they traveled the world to add to their species list (and of course, to vist some fantastic places). I appreciate the beauty, but I’m not interested enough to identify the species of everything I see. It’s sort of like collecting baseball cards. Or gnomes. I’m going to get in trouble if I keep on going with this train of thought. I know a lot of serious birders. Sorry.

    The preserve manages about 50K acres of wetlands, floodplains and agricultural land along the Cosumnes River – the river is permanent, but the wetlands mostly dry up during the summer. You can see that on the current Google Maps photos – there is not much water visible when those pictures were taken from space. But during the winter and spring, the river floods into the open areas, and it’s a great place for birding and photography. I opted to start with  the west side mainly because I passed by the parking lot first. It was a good decision. 

    The main trail for this side of the road is a raised levy and boardwalk which winds through the flooded areas and ends in a raised viewing area. I picked a perfect day – very few people and perfect weather. I hooked up my camera and 500mm lens to the fancy monopod I purchased last year, and trudged off in search of things to photograph. The first flooded area had a variety of ducks and geese – nothing very exciting, but very tranquil.

    Cosumnes River Preserve, calm water

    The sun was still high, and the lighting harsh – not really conducive for photographing the waterfowl. But all of a sudden, a huge flock, almost a cloud, of snow geese exploded out of the ponds to the North, and swirled around in waves of birds. The chattering was incredibly loud – time to take some pictures!

    Flock of Snow Geese at the Cosumnes River Preserve

    I’m not sure what triggers these mass flock movements, but it seems to happen every 20 minutes. So, I just kept on walking, and stopped to photograph the clouds of birds every so often. I also switched to video a few times.

    Once I reached the end of the trail, I hung around at the viewing area for a while, just watching a flock of Coots paddling around. The lighting was still awful, so I decided to head back to the car, and drive over to the visitor center. Which unfortunately was closed. Darn. I did wander around some of the trails, one of which goes to the river and another which leads back over to the other side of the road. Since the sun was setting, I decided to head back to other area and take advantage of the improved lighting conditions.

    I pretty much had the boardwalk and viewing area to myself as the sun set. I shot a few more photos of the Coots and geese, and just enjoyed the incredible beauty and tranquility (other than the noisy geese). 

    A red-winged blackbird
    Great White Fronted Geese
    Great White Fronted Geese
    American Coot

    I did have a surprise guest as I approached the viewing area – cute little guy.

    The one creature I was hoping to see, Sandhill Cranes, were somewhere else. When Jan and I first moved to the South Bay, we drove off one day to some other wildlife refuge, where the big birds flocked to during their migrations. It was pretty amazing. But it was an open agriculture field, dry, not flooded. I chatted with a couple of birders along the boardwalk, and they gave me directions to a couple of farms where I might see the cranes. Maybe next week. Or not. I’ll probably visit this preserve and another wetlands area again instead. 

    And I did get to play around with my toys – this was the first time I really had an opportunity to use the fancy monopod I bought last year. Worked really well. I also played around a lot with focus, ISO and exposure settings, something I really need to gain some expertise in instead of experimenting on a trip.

    Viewing area at the Cosumnes River Preserve
    Viewing area and my strange monopod

    In three weeks, I’ll be photographing gray whales in Laguna Ojo de Liebre (Baja)…maybe even petting one. I made a promise to not pet or kiss the whales…forget kissing. Gross. But I would like to touch one, even though the naturalists with National Geographic said that is not proper etiquette.

    I’ll be shooting mostly video with a GoPro on this trip. No big lenses. And switching gears, here is the finished product of the changes I made to the fireplace in my living room, with the rotting log photo I had printed on acrylic.

    I’m through printing acrylics for a while – I’ve got too many trips coming up, and want to save some wall space.

    Peace

    Here’s a link for the preserve if you ever want to check it out:

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