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Author Archives: ctaylor

Santa Barbara Channel Pelagic

Sunday, March 1 – Wes Fritz organized a pelagic aboard the Condor Express. The mission objective was to locate any Parakeet Auklets which sometimes winter as far south as Southern California. They have been recorded in counties just north of Santa Barbara County and a dead specimen washed ashore at Venice Beach in Los Angeles county last winter. To give you an idea of where Parakeet Auklets are normally found:

Parakeet Auklet Range Map

We set sail from Santa Barbara Harbor at approximately 0700 Sunday morning. The weather couldn’t have been more perfect. No winds, patchy high/upper clouds and a sea that looked like glass. The combination of that and being on a large catamaran meant we felt very virtually no ship rocking. Perfect conditions for photography! Within 30 minutes of leaving the harbor we located a pair of Xantus’s Murrelet (scrippsi). They were quite cooperative allowing us to circle around them for optimal lighting conditions. At one point we were within at least 30′ of them.

After 15-20 minutes of spectacular views and photos of the Murrelets we continued on our way. Not even thirty minutes later, Paul Lehman shouted “STOP THE BOAT!!!!” And let me tell you, that catamaran can stop on a DIME. We all lurched forward as the captain put on the brakes. We were looking all around to figure out what Paul screamed stop for. We heard someone shout “PARAKEET AUKLETS”. A few moments later, one surfaced from underwater 50 yards from the boat. Moments later a second surfaced. The captain quickly tried to get the boat a little closer. More than 3/4 of the boat had cameras and you could hear everyone’s shutters going off at full speed.

The map below will give you an idea of our route. The top-left mark was where we located the pair of Parakeet Auklets. Top-right mark is Santa Barbara Harbor. The bottom-left mark is the Rodriguez Seamount – a 6,000′ deep trench.

GPS Ship Track Plot Map

San Miguel Island (Point Conception in background)

Aside from the Parakeet Auklets, I had an incredible photo day recording my best yet photos of Cassin’s and Rhinoceros Auklet and Xantus’s Murrelet:

Xantus’s Murrelet

Rhinoceros Auklet

Cassin’s Auklet

Parakeet Auklet

Northern Fulmar

Pigeon Guillemot

California Gull

Humpback Whale

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Posted by ctaylor on March 2, 2009 in Photography Adventures

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Tags: california gull, cassin's auklet, humpback whale, northern fulmar, parakeet auklet, paul lehman, pelagic, pigeon guillemot, rhinoceros auklet, rodriguez seamount, santa barbara, wes fritz, xantus's murrelet

Scoter and Wigeon

February 28

The past couple of winters I’ve been struggling to get better photos of White-winged Scoter and Eurasian Wigeon. Well, I finally got my best images today. The prior being the one at Bolsa Chica all winter. If you recall, I missed this one when I was at Bolsa Chica a couple of weeks ago. The Eurasian Wigeon is the one that has wintered at Tewinkle Park for the past two winters in Costa Mesa.

White-winged Scoter

Eurasian Wigeon

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Posted by ctaylor on February 28, 2009 in Photography Adventures

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Tags: bolsa chica, eurasian wigeon, orange county, tewinkle park, white-winged scoter

To Brant or to Rant…

February 26

For some reason I decided to go to Ballona Creek again this afternoon. I was there yesterday looking for the Brant and just as I was giving up it flew over me and up Ballona Creek…never stopping. So since I knew it’s still around I figured I’d try my luck today. I scanned the Creek and didn’t see anything so I decided to take some photos of Bufflehead that were pretty close to shore. After a few shots I threw my tripod over my back to start heading up the Creek some more.

About two steps out, one of my worst fears happened. My camera, lens, flash, etc. ripped off my tripod and fell to the ground behind me. I spun around to see my lens laying in mud, the body completely ripped from it. Upon closer investigation I found the body was completely fine ( Thank God ). But it appeared my 1.4x extender is what separated from the lens itself. The foot on the flash unit ripped off the mount and was covered in mud. The lens didn’t appear to be damaged other than where the 1.4x Extender broke off…I knew the whole mounting plate would probably have to be replaced as well as the extender itself. I picked everything up and waddled back to the car.

When I got home, I set everything on the dining room table for closer inspection. I realized that there was absolutely no damage to my lens, not even the mounting plate. The remains of the extender were still mounted to the lens and I was able to unscrew it revealing the lens was perfectly fine. Wow!!

I unscrewed the other half of the extender from the body and found the mounting plate on the body was fine – not even bent. There was some mud and gravel on the body which I wiped away with a wet cloth. After I got it all off, there wasn’t a single scratch or dent!

The flash had seen better days. A couple of big gashes but all cosmetic. I thought the foot was broken but it turned out is was the other half of the extension cable still stuck to it. It came right off revealing a perfectly intact flash foot. I immediately hooked it up to the body and put it onto my lens and found everything functioning like normal.

How lucky I am everything landed right between two giant boulders and onto soft mud.

So, how did it all happen? Well, pictures follow. As you can see, there’s a big mounting plate that my Wimberley head attached to. There’s also a clamp on the tripod itself that holds this in place. I always check to make sure everything “appears” secure by pulling on the mounting head, and checking the plate where the lens mounts too. But I never actually took a wrench and tightened the bolt that secures the mounting plate. Let this be a BIG lesson to myself and anyone else with similar set-ups!!!

Here you can see the other half of the 1.4x Extender still attached to my camera body:

The remains of the flash extension cable:

And, finally, what’s left of the 1.4x Extender:

So, replacement costs:

Canon 1.4x Teleconverter: $279.00
Flash Extension Cord: $64.00
Total: $343.00

And sorry to sound cliché:

Learning a valuable lesson: PRICELESS

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Posted by ctaylor on February 26, 2009 in Photography Adventures

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Tags: ballona creek, brant

South Coast Botanic Garden

February 20

I visited the South Coast Botanic Garden early Thursday morning with Patrick Santinello. Our mission was to find the Thick-billed Kingbird that has been wintering here along with the Varied Thrushes recently seen in the pines of Yarrow Rd. We arrived just after 7AM to find out that the garden does not actually open to the public until 9AM! Fortunately a very nice ranger graciously allowed us to enter before everyone else. Her remarks as we left were, “You’ve got the whole place to yourselves!” We went straight to the lake where the Thick-billed Kingbird was being regularly seen. We spent 20 minutes listening and looking for the TBKI but no luck. We had a juv. Sharp-shinned Hawk fly by while we were observing a Fox Sparrow on the ground.

We decided to head over to the pines to find the Varied Thrushes. Again, after 30-45 minutes of searching we found nothing. 🙁 We did however stumble upon a female Purple Finch! They are irregular but sometimes come down from the mountains in winter, along the coast. Lots of Warbler activity, mostly Yellow-rumped (with the males starting to get their beautiful breeding colours). Also had a few Townsend’s, Orange-crowned, Yellow and lots of Ruby-crowned Kinglets.

Feeling a bit bummed that we still hadn’t found any of our target birds we decided to try our luck for the Kingbird back at the lake. After a few minutes, lo’ and behold I heard the definite call of the TBKI! I turned around and saw it flying up in the air and landing back in a nearby tree. We rushed over there and spent 15 minutes watching and photographing it. A little later we heard the cry of 3-4 Red-shouldered Hawks playfully circling over the trees above us. A juv. Cooper’s hawk and Red-tailed Hawk were also in the mix with a couple of American Crows that were not happy at all they were treading on their “turf”.

Thick-billed Kingbird

Gadwall

Red-shouldered Hawk

Cooper’s Hawk

Oh, and before I forget. Some images from Wednesday afternoon…Dick Barth located a Brant at the Ballona Creek mouth that morning. I’ve been trying to get better photos of Brant for quite a while now so I decided to go look for it. No such luck. The US Coast Guard/Army were in the middle of dredging the sand out of the channel. So much for any hopes of finding a Brant there!! I did find a very nice adult Glaucous-winged Gull along with a 1st year bird with no manners!

Glaucous-winged Gull

Another treat was a Brandt’s Cormorant that was practically following me around. I kept moving backward since I couldn’t fit the entire bird in my lens, only to have it continue walking toward me. This went on until a large poodle decided to try and make friends with him. The Brandt’s Cormorant did not oblige and after a couple of snaps the poodle continued along it’s way (unleashed by it’s owner, of course). The Cormorant didn’t seem to mind that much though.

Brandt’s Cormorant

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Posted by ctaylor on February 20, 2009 in Photography Adventures

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Tags: brandt's cormorant, cooper's hawk, gadwall, glaucous-winged gull, palos verdes, purple finch, red-shouldered hawk, south coast botanic garden, thick-billed kingbird

More fun with Map Plotting!

February 18

I’ve been having a blast coming up with new ideas for GPS map plotting through the Google Maps API. As you may already know, you can go to the following URL to see everywhere I’ve been:

Click to see all places I’ve been.

You can also restrict this to a specific year:

Everywhere I’ve been in 2009.

Most recently, I’ve added the ability to search for all the places I’ve photographed a specific species. If you click on the Red marker you will also see the location name and the date it was photographed there:

Mountain Bluebird

Black-capped Chickadee

Willet

Peregrine Falcon

You can even add “year=” to the URL to further filter locations I’ve photographed a species by year. For example:

Mountain Bluebird (in 2009 only)

Feel free to play around with different bird names by substituting the text after “?bird=” in the URL. Pretty nifty, eh??

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Posted by ctaylor on February 18, 2009 in Photography Adventures

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Tags: google, google maps, gps, map plotting