Peep-fest!

This past Saturday was a perfect early fall day with a bright blue sky, light breeze, cool temperatures with a definite nip in the air, and warm sunshine. I went for a walk on the beach early Saturday morning to drink in the perfect weather and the sound of waves crashing in on the shore; the smell of a clean, cold ocean; and the sight of the last few peeps making their way south from their northern breeding grounds.

I brought my digital camera along and spent a good amount of time behind the lens taking photos of the peeps as they foraged on an array of intertidal invertebrates. You can easily lose all track of time in this type of environment and forget about everything else except the peeps, the waves, and the sunlight. I am still learning how to use my digital camera so I took the opportunity to play around with different settings and the light, and snapped a whole lot of photos.

The weather on Sunday was the complete opposite of Saturday – cool, dank, rainy, and windy. It was a perfect day to be at my computer looking at my photos and deciding which ones to post on my Blog. While using Adobe Photoshop Elements I discovered the “Filter” tab and spent time playing around with the different filters and completely changing the look of my photos! What fun! Below are several of the photos I took and a corresponding Photoshopped image. I used different Filters including patchwork, watercolor, ink outline, trace contour, stain glass, and rough pastel.

I hope you enjoy my Peep-fest photos as much as I enjoyed taking them and Photoshopping them!

~~~

Patchwork

~~~

Watercolor

~~~

Ink Outline

~~~

Trace Outline

~~~

Stain Glass

~~~

Rough Pastel

Wordless Wednesday ~ August 26th

A picture is worth a thousand words at Wordless Wednesday.
 

Hawaiian Shirt Shorebird Safari 2009

On Saturday, August 15th, Mark and I led 19 birders, all clad in Hawaiian shirt and leis, on a Hawaiian Shirt Shorebird Safari for the Brookline Bird Club. We met the group at Morris Island at 8:30 AM, exchanged greetings, selected the perfect leis to match Hawaiian shirts, and then we were off! Rip Ryder whisked us to the southern end of South Beach in one of their high-speed, 20 passenger ferryboats. We got to the southern end of South Beach by 9 AM and debarked with anticipation of a great day.

Mark and Susan were one of the first to get off of the boat!

Bev, Pamela, Constance, Dave, Jim, Chuck, and Brian were not far behind.

I love the bright, loud, colorful, Hawaiian shirts!

We had decent weather with temperatures in the low-to-mid 80's, little-to-moderate winds, a lot of fog during the morning, and sunshine for the rest of the day. The greenheads were bothersome if you did not have long pants on or ample amounts of bug spray. As we birded our way north, we noticed the low numbers of individuals. There were times when the beach was devoid of any shorebirds and when we saw shorebirds, they were not in the numbers that I have seen in past years! Maybe we were just there on an off day.

Christopher is getting ready to photograph something. Check out his Blog to see what!

The group takes a "birding" lunch break.

Kelly took this great photo of the group from the beach - Thanks Kelly!

We arrived back on the mainland by 4:00 PM and went to Orleans to go to the Bird Watcher's General Store to browse around and The Hot Chocolate Sparrow for ice cream and cold drinks. Not wanting the day to end just yet – a few of us went for dinner at a local Mexican restaurant where we compiled the day list and shared a few good laughs! We tallied 51 species - following is our trip list:

South Beach:Wilson's Storm-Petrel – 10
Northern Gannet – 4 / Double-crested Cormorant – 350
Great Egret – 1 / Snowy Egret – 10,
Black Scoter – 1
Black-bellied Plover – 275 / Semipalmated Plover – 300 / Piping Plover – 17
American Oystercatcher – 12
Greater Yellowlegs – 20 / Lesser Yellowlegs – 1
Willet – 24 / Whimbrel – 30
Hudsonian Godwit – 45 / Marbled Godwit – 3
Ruddy Turnstone – 150 / Red Knot – 23 / Sanderling – 450
Semipalmated Sandpiper – 60 / Least Sandpiper – 14 / White-rumped Sandpiper – 4
Short-billed Dowitcher – 104
Laughing Gull – 47 / Ring-billed Gull – 20 / Herring Gull – 100 / Great Black-backed Gull – 80
Roseate Tern – 20 / Common Tern – 1,000 / Forester’s Tern – 4 / Least Tern – 4
Horned Lark – 1
Tree Swallow – 10 / Barn Swallow – 9,
Saltmarsh Sharp-tailed Sparrow – 1

Off-Beach:
Osprey – 1 / Northern Harrier – 1
Northern Bobwhite – 1 heard halfway between Morris Island and the Chatham Lighthouse
Mourning Dove – 62 / Red-bellied Woodpecker – 1
Blue Jay – 2 / American crow – 10 / Black-capped Chickadee – 8
American Robin – 3 / Northern Mockingbird – 5 / European starling – 150
Cedar Waxwing – 2 / Song Sparrow – 2 / Red-winged Blackbird – 1 / American Goldfinch - 15

Many thanks to our fellow Shorebird Safarians - you made it a great day! Aloha!