I’m back, well, kinda. As the saying goes, rumors of my demise are [somewhat] exaggerated. The good news is I am past the first of the two events that have been consuming every available second night and day. We held our annual Halloween Haunted Trail event over the weekend. I am rating it as a complete success based on some of the feedback we have been receiving on various social media outlets. Some of my readers made it to the event, so I’ll let them chime in on the comments on how they think it went. Ron and his son even came down a day early to help me out as some of my usual volunteers were unable to help this year – that was a huge assist along with Brad providing guest posts so I could focus on the trail. Finally got the haunted trail torn down and in our outbuilding late this afternoon – will move to packing phase after the second of the two stressful events is over. Focus now shifts to the 100K ultra that launches at 5am this coming Saturday. Need to heal some tweaks, get some rest and see what I can do about the 5 pounds I lost putting the trail together. I don’t mind being a little lighter to carry the large hills, but that is a bit more than I am comfortable with. I’ll cover these two endeavors in future posts, right now I just wanted to get something out so you don’t forget about me ha! The good news is Brad has been gracious to give me a few more features to use as I get closer to race time. Enough gabbing, time to get on with your regularly scheduled programming.
Hit the jump to see more of the rest.
I will admit that I took a bit of a shortcut on today’s feature. Although the trail tear-down is slightly easier than the multi-week prep and build phase, it did leave me pretty exhausted. Was talking to my Partner in Haunt Paul and he admitted “I can’t remember when I’ve been this tired before” too tired even for an exclamation point ha. Rather than take the time to head back into the digital darkroom, I instead went to the “seconds” pile.
When I make a post, I start by adding all the shots that I processed for the given series. From there I prune down until I think I’m giving you the best experience. The ones I choose to trim off are moved to a post draft in case I ever want to go with a part two in the future. For ease, decided to wade through the “seconds” queue and pulled out the best of those for a birdapalooza. Most of these shots I milled over for some time before deciding to exclude them from the original posts. The singing Dickcissel in the shot above was one of those. I really liked the background gradient, the dangerous barb vs the delicate feathers (wish there were more in the frame) and the specimen was sharply adorned. Decided I really wanted more of the head shown and opted to sacrifice it.
The shot above came from the Audubon Bird Sanctuary at Dauphin Island. A rather cute shot of a Yellow-Throated Vireo. This colorful member of the Vireo family was hanging out in the trees next to the lookout on their main pond – Some of you will know exactly where that spot is. Ended up having a very similar shot with just slightly more tilt to the camera providing a bit more head profile. To be honest, I still think this makes a cute shot. Next up is a tin of a Hooded Warbler also from Dauphin Island.
Ironically, I still need this bird for our Average Year efforts. Having to cancel our migration trip down there this year put a dent in my Warbler efforts – although Ron and I have been picking off several of these thanks to some local outings. This species can hold their own colorwise with many of the other members of the New World Warblers. They tend to stay low to the ground which means you get to fight the shadows and dancing light to get something decent in the tin. The harshness of the foreground ended up costing this particular shot. Managed to get the darker exposure on this next shot – just didn’t like the leaf impaled on its head. Note also the bark pattern just above the head, looks like a face to me. Once I saw that, I couldn’t stop looking at it hehehe.
Following that up with another snap from Dauphin Island. This particular Black-Throated Green Warbler refused to give me a clean shot at it. Flitting back and forth, from one branch to another planning out each new perch to maximize the amount of leaves I had to fight through to get a shot. What a pain in the ass. Ended up getting a couple of very similar shots after giving my arms quite a workout. Simply flipped a coin in the darkroom and this one was edged out. I do not like the brown leaf placement and I’ll leave it at that.
The Olive Sparrow below managed to fill up a huge chunk of my digital capital First off, it was a lifer so that automatically ups the click count. Want to make sure I get a decent shot of it and once that is done, work on getting additional angles for the pending blog feature. Then it went and landed in puddle of water that was being blessed with a ray of happiness. Hard to pull yourself away when the proverbial stars align like that. This shot was simply a victim of the numbers game – glad it got a chance to shine today.
Some shots fall into a category consisting of behavior, expressions or situations that I like, but then end up getting passed over simply due to how others might view them. Photography is a fickle beast. We all have our preferences – maybe there was some sequence of events that led up to a particular moment in time, some memory that was triggered or maybe you happen to like Halloween season a lot more than others and find shots like the one below inspirational – “Honey, I think a bunch of bird props without heads running around the woods would be pretty scary for our trail…” Linda” “NO!”, But … “NO!
One of these years I am going to sneak it in – Hey, maybe a demented clown eating the heads off of birds – now that has double scare potential – Coulrophobia birders would be absolutely horrified. Guessing my readers would prefer seeing their wildlife with their heads on, so the images that do get selected tend to be those showing the fruits of their labor – in this case, a tasty Minnow.
Then we come to the shots that I pass over due to nothing other than the cropping. My preference is to always leave room in front of the subject so it has “room to move” so to speak. The exposure might be right, the composition might be right, but if I can’t give the animal enough space to spread its wings and take a few steps – it almost always gets passed over. That also applies, to a lesser extent, when appendages getting lopped off. It just feels like your specimen has been boxed in/confined if you will so it loses the “wild” part of “life”. Granted chopped legs does have a horror theme to it, but I’ll gloss over that for now. If I still like the shot, I might try to save it by increasing the crop to isolate a feature like the face or feet. This happens a lot with the taller waders. In this case, there really wasn’t much I could do.
Then there are the “seconds” designation that are simply due to space. I am guilty of overdoing the length of a lot of my posts. I know you have other bloggers and topics to get to and try to be conscious of that when deciding when to call it. This is the situation where the “Part Two” posts emanate from. I’ll cut the set of images in half and put them in the draft queue for a future “Holy crap it’s almost the end of the month” moment. Grabbed some shots from the entries in that queue to round out this post. The first is of a female Orchard Oriole.
Then my favorites left over from the Cape May Warbler series.
I think the Bottlebrush setting really adds some punch to these Cape May shots.
Better let you go so you can get on to better things and I can start making out the list of things I’ll need to take for the race. Looks like it is going down to 32 the night before the race and considering adding some extra layers for the early miles – thinking the 6 or so water crossings are going to be a bit of a shock to the system ugh.
Hope you enjoyed a run through the “seconds”. Take care all – for those of you with your own blogs, apologies again for being behind on all your posts. Once this week is over I’ll make a point to get caught up. Look for another great feature from Brad in the upcoming days.
Wildlife Intrigued 
“seconds?” Not that I can see. These are really nice and I liked the hooded warbler the best but your shots are really nice. Best wishes on your up coming run.
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Thank you CJ. Sometimes the post “cutting” goes pretty easy and then there are times when you have to choose between your “babies”. Fortunately some of the close one still got a chance to shine in today’s post. If only I could find one of those Hooded Warblers this year!!! Take care and thanks for the wishes.
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Always difficult ‘culling’ shots for a post, my limitation is knowing how much wordpress gb I’m using up!
Some real beauties among these, my favourite is the singing Dickcissel a great capture.
Good luck on the run, I still think you are crazy but each to their own.
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I remember you are using the WP storage – that definitely puts a crimp in the options – especially with some of the file sizes these new cameras are pumping out – think my wife’s is in the 38-50mb sizes. Fortunately, I just link off our business gallery up on Smugmug so that helps on that front. The Dickcissel was my favorite of this set as well. If I wasn’t fortunate it enough to get another shot with a slightly better head profile, it would have made the “firsts” set for sure. Sometimes it is just a millimeter that makes the difference. I liken crazy to those drag racers – me, I just need to put one foot in front of the other for 15+ hours – those dudes are strapping themselves to rockets!!! Thanks for dropping in B – I am a bit behind on your posts, but will get caught up soon.
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I’m happy to hear your Halloween Haunted Trail was a success after all your tiring, selfless work. Beautiful set of pretty birds in your birdapalooza post. The singing Dickcissel looks like a happy crooner chirping out birdie beats.
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Totally lucked out with the weather both on the two days of the event and probably more important, during all the prep work the week leading up to fright night. Ha, laughed at birdie beats – those Dickcissels can be a one hell of a beat box – must drive their spouses crazy hehehe. Take it easy Timothy, will hopefully be back on schedule after this weekend.
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Beakwagging spouses are probabling as annoying as chinwagging spouses. The spotted towhees around here rarely shut their beaks.
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Hehehehe awesome – I’ll be thinking of that line every time I hear an Eastern Towhee chattering away from now on.
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The Haunted trail was wonderful, especially the new pumpkin arch.
I really liked the warbler and bottle brush shots, the colors really pop! If those were “seconds” I’m going to look up the “firsts”.
Best of luck on the 100k this weekend. Please keep us posted on your progress and results.
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Thank you Brad! We did get a lost of positive responses on the party overall and the arch got a lot of votes for the best haunt feature – Paul’s spider projection and Brad’s huge skeleton were all neck and neck with it. I’ll probably have to let Linda do any of the updating “during” the race (especially if it involves a free ride to the hospital), but there will definitely be a recap afterwards. I should have plenty of ideas for upcoming posts after the “ordeal”. Thanks for dropping in and for making it out to the party!
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There really aren’t any “free” rides to hospitals. Just sayin’…
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True, but they give me deep discounts for being a frequent customer! At least the ambulances over there don’t say B.Y.E. on the sides – like the ones out by us have – always felt that was an ominous last thing to see before they load you in.
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Hope you have enough Kitchen Cooked sand Quik for recovery. Or do you prefer Bosco?
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Chocolate milk and a bowl full of Advil at the ready! (although it has to be really really bad for me to take any pills)
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Really enjoyed your commentary on what makes a photo superior, and glad these images got their chance to shine, regardless. I agree, including the space that legs and feet would have occupied, even if they are invisible, is something I try to do. When I can’t, I try cropping it to be a head-and-shoulders shot. Good luck on your run!
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Decided to give a little background on my selection process – a good reminder for my inner voice when I’m out in the field – “You know Bri, if you take one foot to the left you won’t have that annoying leaf sticking out of its head”. I’m already constantly telling myself to take the camera away from my eye to check the immediate foreground I’m shooting through (not that I don’t still forget ha). Right with you on the head and shoulders shot – if you see one of those here, the subject was either too close for the Beast or I there was some kneecapping going on hehehe. Appreciate you dropping in and thanks for the wishes – should have a good story either way come sometime early Sunday morning. Appreciate you dropping in.
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I really enjoyed all these portraits as well as reading about your thoughts about composing your photos. If you have to weigh the pros and cons of your photos, it means you were able to get numerous images. In some instances, we are happy just to document the species. 🙂
Good luck resting this week, and good luck with your upcoming looong race!
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You are absolutely right Tanja – I need to appreciate the opportunity to have choices to make. I cannot count the times where I’ve been one click and done and just hoping something got in the tin that will be good enough to indicate it was a bird much less clear enough to get the life check. So far the resting is going good, the trail drained me pretty good, but ended my last taper run late last night and able to fully rest for the next couple of days – now at a point where I need to stop myself from worrying about whether I trained hard enough through the course of the year – there is no hiding now, the race gods will assuredly let me know one way or the other. As always, thanks for coming by.
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Enjoyed the ‘long’ article. Good photographs always keep my attention.
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Thank you Ted! I’m sure you go through the same struggles trying to figure out what images to keep and which to post – the photographers dilemma ha. I guess that just keeps us going out into the field. Have a great rest of your week and I’ll be catching up on all your missed posts as soon as I can.
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Nice collection of images. Birds, like people, can often times give us “attitude” which make their expressions all the more endearing.
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Interesting process, Brian. All these guys are handsome. Glad to hear your haunted trail was a success. Best of luck with the big run! 🌞
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Thank you Lisa. With all the work leading up to the party I always start wondering if it is all worth it …then I get to watch everyone enjoying the fruits of the labor and then I can’t wait to start working on next year’s additions – after the painful process of de-battering and putting all the current stuff back in storage – not as bad as getting everything ready for the trail, but definitely still a lot of work ha. The run was a bit bittersweet – will bring everyone up to speed on that once I recover. Appreciate you coming by!
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Loved your last picture, Brian. Yes, the bottlebrush really adds to the shot.
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Thank you! To be honest, I didn’t even know what a bottlebrush was until that visit to Dauphin island and now I am trying to figure out if they will grow in my neck of the woods. Not only are they beautiful plants/trees in their own right, birds appear to LOVE them! As always, appreciate you coming by and joining the conversation.
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The “bottle brush” looks an awful lot like an ‘ʻōhi’a, usually found near lava. (maybe a future post idea . . . ?)
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