About Donald Waite

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So far Donald Waite has created 38 blog entries.

Worldwide Bird Photographers

I’d like to take this opportunity to thanks Susan A Robertshaw and Simone Mazzoccoli from Italy for participating in the web site.

177-002-liberian-grey-shrike-2016-06-04-simone-mazzoccoli-calera-y-chozas-spain-0003 – Global Bird Photos 

076-005-great-grey-owl-2019-05-28-susan-a-robertshaw-kelowna-bc-canada-0056 – Global Bird Photos

Worldwide Bird Photographers2020-04-21T14:26:33-07:00

Bald Eagle Photographer Eric Rossicci

Possibly North America’s most photographed bird, the Bald Eagle is the United States of America’s national emblem. Here are a couple of wildlife  photographer Eric Rossicci’s trademark photos of this majestic bird in full flight. Eric does most of his eagle and owl photography at Boundary Bay. During the month of February hundreds of these beautiful birds gather in Delta, British Columbia. He uses the Canon 1 D X Mark 11 EOS DSLR camera body (20.2 MG) with the Canon 500 lens with the 1.4 teleconverter (to take it up to 700 mm). The camera focuses instantly and fires an incredible 14 frames per second at a shutter speed of 1/8,000 second. That’s a ridiculous number of frames per second with very quick focusing and unparalleled tracking capabilities.To date Eric has over 21,000 Bald Eagle images on file.

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Eric’s full frame 20.2  megapixel capture of a majestic maturing adult Bald Eagle before cropping.

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A 50 % crop of the majestic maturing adult Bald Eagle above from a 20.2 megapixel file could easily provide enough data for a 4′ x 5′ or 4′ x 6′ same size print as the bird. This razor-sharp photo shows the curl on the forward wingtip from the forceful downward flap of the wings.

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Another of Eric’s  full frame captures before cropping.

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The above photo with 50 % cropping.

Eric has a few tips: First know your subjects, in this case the behavior of the Bald Eagle. By studying their body language, he can anticipate their reactions. Then all he has to do is fire off his camera, mounted on a tripod, remotely as soon as there is some action. When an eagle coils down slightly and starts opening its wings, it’s time to push the trigger. Eric spends an average of 3 to 4 hours daily honing his skills and shoots rain or shine. He has another secret: in order to keep his reflexes sharp, he practices with a readily available program on the Internet called ‘Test your reflexes’.

https://www.justpark.com/creative/reaction-time-test/

This type of photography is simple: practice, practice, practice!

Below iOS Eric’s link to Flickr account.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/101237979@N03/

Below is a link to some of Eric’s books:

http://www.blurb.ca/search/site_search?search=Eric+rossicci&filter=bookstore

Bald Eagle Photographer Eric Rossicci2020-03-31T10:04:25-07:00

Wildlife Photographer Bjorn Olesen

This is the first world-renowned wildlife (bird) photographer to agree to appear on my blog after a short exchange of messages. His web site is:

www.bjornolesen.com

Bjorn responded immediately saying that in Singapore they used these simple rules:

https://www.nss.org.sg/documents/NSSEthics.pdf

He also said that he did not agree to the use of artificial lights at nests.

Below is the cover to one of his books.

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‘A Visual Celebration of Borneo’s Wildlife’

The captions in the four photographs below are from the book ‘A Visual Celebration of Borneo’s Wildlife’ by Bjorn and his wife Fanny Lai.

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The Red-breasted Parakeet is restricted to southern Kalimantan in Borneo and can be seen gathering in large flocks at their roosts. Ornithologists believe that these populations of Red-breasted Parakeet were isolated in dryer southeast Borneo after sea levels rose cutting Borneo from Java.

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Like the frogmouths, the insectivorous Large-tailed Nightjar also has a wide mouth fringed with rictal bristles and is camouflaged for roosting and nesting on the ground. The nest is normally a hollow scrape in the leaf-litter. Here is a superbly camouflaged adult Large-tailed Nightjar and two chicks.

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A female Olive-backed Sunbird feeding a young chick. The overhanging porch at the entrance is typical of the sunbird nests. The Olive-backed Sunbird is well-adapted to human modified landscapes and is often found in gardens and parks. It feeds mainly on nectar which it extracts from flower S with its long-curved bill. Both the male and female share the duties of incubation and feeding the young.

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The Collared Aracara is a toucan, here seen leaving the nest cavity. Small flocks, usually consisting of 6-15 birds, move through the forest with a rapid direct flight. This species is primarily an arboreal fruit eater, but will also take insects, lizards, eggs, and other small prey. To see this colourful bird so close up is really a treat. Here is one of my favorite toucan images taken at 8,000 ISO in Costa Rica.

Bjorn current camera bodies are the Nikon D5  and the Nikon D500 mainly using the Nikon 600 mm VR lens, sometimes with the 1.4 teleconverter.

 

 

Wildlife Photographer Bjorn Olesen2020-03-31T10:05:35-07:00

Bird Photographers of the World

It never occurred to me when I founded this web site 20+ years ago that I’ve ever be trying to encourage bird photographers from around the world to enter into positive and informative dialogue and submit photographs of birds taken at the nest. I wonder how many photographs of different species of birds at the nest will eventually appear on this web site.

According to the ‘National Geographic Birds of the World’ there are 249 families and 10,425 bird species world-wide. We have 80 bird families and 760 bird species that breed in North America.

With the more advanced cameras and web cams there are going to be more and more well intentioned amateur photographers taking videos and stills of the life cycles of birds. This is a good thing but it has to be done by people with an understanding of their subjects. The below video is disturbing in that the photographer cut away the upper story of the shrubbery and thus exposed the nestlings to the sun (see day 9).

Bird Photographers of the World2020-03-31T10:05:45-07:00