Monthly Archives: February 2013

Nature Photography – Michigan Red Cardinal

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Nature Photography – Michigan Red Cardinal

One Early Morning in a Secluded Michigan Wetland – 100 Shades of Red

Cardinalis Cardinalis

 

Red Cardinal

Red Cardinal

 

I saw one hundred shades of red sitting on a frosted frozen branch.  This Cardinal was red on red, in red on black. No, no, it was red, on black, on red, with a red beak!  This bird had a red cap at the top of it’s crown, red ear patch, red moustachial stripes, red eye ring, red nape at the nape of it’s neck. The ruby red color was even covering the entire mantle and tertials from the top of it’s head to the primary tip projection of it’s tail. Red under tail coverts, red greater coverts on the edge of the wings, median coverts where a charcoal slate colored shade of red, the greater primary coverts, the marginal, lesser, median, and greater coverts all different shades of red. Did I mention the bird had a red chest and even an all red beak?

The Northern Cardinal is a summer and winter bright ruby red winged creature.  This Cardinal is another prolific photographed bird.  It is most recognized because of it’s bright vivid red plumage.

 

Michigan Red Cardinal

Michigan Red Cardinal

 

One Cold and chilly morning I spotted a Red Cardinal sitting motionless in a thicket of branches.  The morning air was chilled and crisp. Normally, this bird is photographed on branches covered in a layer of pure white snow.  However, on this occasion, the thicket of branches were covered in a thin layer of ice. This ice gave the branches an almost pinkish hew, a unique contrast with the Cardinal posing as the center piece.  The branches looked as though they had been sprayed with a coating of velvet frost sprinkled the  full length of the branches which gave the effect of diamonds studs along the many smaller stems. This all red Northern Cardinal bird looks like a living Jewel.

 

Northern Cardinal

Northern Cardinal Female

 

The sun had not yet disturbed this frosty frozen scenery as the birds location was protected; set just below a twenty foot ravine.  But this was quickly about to change as the sun slowly rose, it encroached on the Northern Cardinal’s location, the sun rays also quickly melted the ice crystals off the nearby branches on contact. I had to quickly setup and try to get this shot.

 

Cardinal

Cardinal in Flight

 

The above shot of a ruby red Cardinal may not be the best photo, but I did manage to capture the scenery just before it all dissipated in minutes.

Lessons Learned From Birds of Nature

The Northern Red Cardinal is a very alert and observant bird.  It scouts out a potential feeding location with distant threat surveyance strategy. It is elusive and very skittish. This observant Cardinal will also match previous scenery against current and can quickly distinguish that something has changed since it’s last visit.  This is a very observant and intelligent bird. See additional Michigan Red Cardinal Photos Here… Red Cardinal Michigan Photo.  View other Michigan Birds Here… Michigan Birds.

 

About the Northern Red Cardinal

Nature Photography – Michigan Bird Identification
Photo Taken: Lake Erie MetroPark

Group: Groesbeaks and Buntings
Name: Northern Cardinal
Cardinal cardinalis

Appearance:
The Michigan Northern Cardinal is a 8-9 inch bird with, black face mask and all red plumage, and a bad hair day crown.

Adult: Color is bright red, female is beige with orange beak.

Flight Characteristics:
Jittery quick wing beats, several flaps then pause and a slip dip when in flight.  The Red Cardinal is a fast flier.

Habitat: The Michigan Red Cardinal prefers brushy dense thickets located in grasslands, lakes and wetlands.

Nesting: Cardinal will construct an open cupped mounded nest made of branches and twigs of various sizes. Nests are located fairly close to the ground.

Incubates 3-4 bluish eggs for appx 12-14 days.

Mating Habits: The Northern Cardinals mates for extended periods.

Feeding: Seeds, insects, berries, grain.

Call: Series of fluctuating song like low-high whistles. Song Bird.

 

Bird Conservation in Michigan

Michigan Bird Conservation Initiative

Michigan Department of Natural Resources 

Check the Michigan Department of Natural Resources for Michigan Wetland Management, Learn More… DNR Michigan

nature photography - michigan

Nature Photography by Ike Austin – Michigan
Photography that is Therapy for the Soul 

Michigan Birds

 

National Geographic

2011 Editors Choice Winning Photo

 

Birds Photography Night Heron

National Geographic 2011
View Entry on NG website… NG Contest Winners

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Birding Associations and Organizations

This Weeks Honorable Mention:

American Birding Association (ABA)
Purpose: The ABA is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that provides leadership to birders by increasing their knowledge, skills, and enjoyment of birding. Mission Statement and Code of Ethics… Read More Here… ABA Code Of Ethics

Membership Required: Y, $45/yr.
Inforemative Website Information: Y
Year Long Events: Y
Active Birder Blog(s): Y
Informative Rating: 8

Nature Photography – by Ike Austin

Nature Photography that is Therapy for the Soul

Michigan Birds

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Michigan Birds

Michigan Birds  –  Many Shapes, sizes, colors and groups. 

Many Coats of Colors

Michigan Birds; there are Michigan reds, blues and white birds of color. Grey birds, green birds and orange ones too. Yellow birds, yellow and black, yellow birds with blue. There are blue birds with blue wings, some others with blue caps and other Michigan birds are blue all over. Beige, with black tips, brown with black strips, and multicolored like the rainbow, big and small, mean and timid. Birds painted in a variety of colors from the tip of their beak to the end of their tail, nails and toe.

 

 

Michigan Birds

Michigan Birds – Photo by Ike Austin

 

Shapes and Sizes

There are tall Michigan Birds, tall and skinny, big and fat. There are a plenty of small birds, tiny birds and minauture birds a squring about. Michigan has birds with giant wing spans over six feet wide, others with small spans only inches in length.  Some birds are fast, others slow, still some are swift can turn on a dime.

 

Michigan Bird

Michigan Bird

 

Michigan Birds   – Some Fly High, Others Low

Some Michigan Birds fly high others fly low. Some glide, others dive below.  Some ride the thermal waves others ride the wind. Some Michigan birds flap with a rapid motion while other birds clap as they flap.

 

Michigan Birds

Michigan Birds

 

Is it a Kettle of Hawks or a Rafter of Turkeys? 

Some Michigan birds stay alone, while others live in groups, called gaggles, brewds, flocks and fleets. Some birds travel in congregations, pods, volery or bevy of a crowd. A cast of Michigan hawks, a charm of darting finches, a cover of angling coot. A bevy of surfing quail,  siege of hunting herons, a clattering of chattering ravens, a party of noisy blue jays. Who have not seen a darting of dabbling ducks bobbing and waving, diving and dunking, and the gulp of cormorants atop the trees. A colony of gulls, a drum of gold finches, a loft of pigeons huddled close. Michigan hosts groups of swallows, and herds of swans or are swans called a bevy or bank? Let’s not forget a Michigan all time favorite; the geese.  Are they called a group of gaggle or plump? classification of Michigan birds groups goes on and on.

 

 

 

 

Michigan Birds - Dabble of Ducks

Michigan Birds – Dabble of Ducks

There’s a Michigan Bird shape and sized to fit every camera lens.

nature photography - michigan

Nature Photography by Ike Austin – Michigan
Photography that is Therapy for the Soul 

Michigan Birds

 

National Geographic

2011 Editors Choice Winning Photo

Nature Photography by Ike Austin – Michigan
Photography that is Therapy for the Soul 

Birds Photography Night Heron

National Geographic 2011
View Entry on NG website… NG Contest Winners

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Michigan White – White Winter Wonder Wetlands

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Michigan’s White Winter Wetlands Covered in Snow

Ike Austin – Photography that is therapy for the soul

 

“Michigan White” –  Winter Wetlands Covered in Snow

White skies, white trees, white bark, white branches, white bush, white shrubs, white cattails, white grasses, white woody plants, white plants. White landscape, white evergreens, white maples, white oaks, white dogwoods, white black spruce, white forestry.  White meadow, white sedge, white bogs, white fen, white rushes, whites edges, white rivers, white lakes, white streams. White lowlands, swales and dunes, white basins, willows, white berry, white prairie, white sand. White floodplains and white islands.  White water, white ponds, pure white snow, pure white scenery, now that’s pure in its visual form, that’s nature’s definition of pure white, now that is “Nature White.”

A fresh quilting of white snow is a sight that  can capture your attention. If you are lucky enough to be standing in the right place, and just happen to be facing the right perspective, you may experience a feeling of presence, a presence of a higher form of life.

 

Pure Michigan

Winter White Wonder Wetlands of Michigan

 

The pure white snow, clean fresh air, untouched by mechanical disruption… and only then will…..the soul, when it engage pure silence, is recharged —ThirdSon and the River’s Sky

 

Lesson’s from Nature

There are times I nearly loose faith in mechanical man who actions change the pure snow to dirty-white. Then, after encountering a scenery of white purity, as defined by nature, in the form of pure white snow, facing unblemished white landscapes, my faith is renewed. Despite the stress that will proceed our personal lives, we are encouraged at such a site, because nature confirm’s that we can, and we will renew. And being newly reinvigorated, we return once again to pure white thought of an unpolluted mind.

Nature Speaks in Season

Nature speaks in spring, nature speaks during summer and fall, nature speaks in winter. Nature speaks during the falling snow, yes, Nature Speaks in Silence.

Beauty of Nature White 

Nature has a lot to say about true purity, nature has its own definition of white, to learn the true meaning, one must quiet the soul to hear the silence that speaks to the mind. Blanketing the landscape in white manna, that glides down from heaven called snow,  to replenish the wetlands, rivers, lakes and streams, and for a few standing close, their minds are renewed, their souls replenished by white winter wetlands, layered in a white quilting of snow.

Many snowy covered wetlands present an opportunity to provide needed therapy to the soul and at the same time, take your breath away with the white beauty that adorned the landscape with each of its white individually custom shaped white pearls that drift down slowly from the winter sky, each taking their place landing on a branch, a twig, a stem of a tree.

 

Wetlands in Michigan

White Winter Wonder Wetlands

Michigan Department of Natural Resources 

Check the Michigan Department of Natural Resources for Michigan Wetland Management, Learn More… DNR Michigan.gov Wetlands

 

 

nature photography - michigan

Nature Photography by Ike Austin – Michigan
Photography that is Therapy for the Soul 

Birds Photography Night Heron

National Geographic 2011 Ed
ThirdSon and the River’s Sky
images of birdsThirdSon and the River’s Sky

 
  • As a kid, I spent an enormous amount of time down by the river. I was drawn like a magnet to the many sounds of nature that filled the air-the tides rumbling ashore, the faint call of seagulls echoing in the distant background. I would remain there all day under the pretense that I was fishing. I would walk the shores for miles, moving from one spot to the next. I later discovered that the sky above this river was alive. 
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