Don't forget bug spray! The bugs were out in full force when I went. I think I saw a coyote roaming around the trail but I wasn't able to get a good look. I turned around and went the other way lol. I live about the same distance. San Jacinto is a place I've never been to that I want to visit. Looks similar to San Joaquin.
We think of birds that hunt as very successful yet they miss a lot. Failing to find catch food is not an option, they must succeed. In this set I'm showing two of 5 failures of a turn fishing and one sequence from a successful dive.
1) Came up empty
X-H2S NIKON AF-S NIKKOR 500mm f/5.6E PF ED VR lens 500mm f/5.6 1/4700s 400 ISO 0.0 EV
2) Came up empty
X-H2S NIKON AF-S NIKKOR 500mm f/5.6E PF ED VR lens 500mm f/5.6 1/2200s 400 ISO 0.0 EV
3) Diving
X-H2S NIKON AF-S NIKKOR 500mm f/5.6E PF ED VR lens 500mm f/5.6 1/1600s 400 ISO +1.3 EV
4) Steering while diving
X-H2S NIKON AF-S NIKKOR 500mm f/5.6E PF ED VR lens 500mm f/5.6 1/1600s 400 ISO +1.3 EV
5) Hitting the water
X-H2S NIKON AF-S NIKKOR 500mm f/5.6E PF ED VR lens 500mm f/5.6 1/1600s 400 ISO +1.3 EV
6) Coming up with a fish
X-H2S NIKON AF-S NIKKOR 500mm f/5.6E PF ED VR lens 500mm f/5.6 1/1600s 400 ISO +1.3 EV
7) It held on to the fish
X-H2S NIKON AF-S NIKKOR 500mm f/5.6E PF ED VR lens 500mm f/5.6 1/1600s 400 ISO +1.3 EV
8) Swallowing the fish
X-H2S NIKON AF-S NIKKOR 500mm f/5.6E PF ED VR lens 500mm f/5.6 1/1600s 400 ISO +1.3 EV
9) It sings a short song after catching the fish
X-H2S NIKON AF-S NIKKOR 500mm f/5.6E PF ED VR lens 500mm f/5.6 1/1600s 400 ISO +1.3 EV
It was suggested to move this to the weekly thread for more views. I would have really liked the shot but considering the circumstances, not so much. The fishing lure, securely hooked in the fishes mouth, is tangled/attached to the Osprey. Depending on how severe the attachment is, the Osprey could be in danger. I had to ditch the tripod, trying to follow the flight, and ended up flat on my back when it landed in the tree directly above my head. The 70-300 may have been a better choice in this case, if I had one.
The big difference is San Jacinto is gong to dry out real quickly with the heat we are about to get. San Joaquin may be greener a little longer. Yes I have bug spray and netting. Won't be able to get out there for a few weeks though. Thanks for the warning.
Thank you, Morris! Much appreciated! The two old power plant shots were taken with 5 images each with the intention of doing HDR processing. I don't know about a "grunge" processing style - I just mess with it until I get the look and feel I want. I'm not a fan of "typical HDR" (for lack of a better term), but find that shooting five images, each with slightly different exposure gives me great latitude to produce the kind of image I saw in my mind's eye. Here's a shot Bliss pointing a sage grouse, by way of one example of this technique:
By way of a completely different example, this is the lighthouse on Ocracoke Island as a storm blew in:
And yet another different application of the technique - Keim farmstead near where I live: