{"id":56342,"date":"2018-02-04T06:31:23","date_gmt":"2018-02-04T13:31:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=56342"},"modified":"2018-02-04T07:37:41","modified_gmt":"2018-02-04T14:37:41","slug":"a-swananza-at-bear-river-mba-yesterday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2018\/02\/04\/a-swananza-at-bear-river-mba-yesterday\/","title":{"rendered":"A “Swananza” At Bear River MBA Yesterday"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yup, a bonanza of swans! And\u00a0many were finally in areas where they could be seen up close. The light was often marginal but I still had a blast with them.<\/p>\n

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1\/1000, f\/10, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

This time of year many thousands of Tundra Swans are found on the refuge but they’re shy and typically so far away that\u00a0all I see of them is tiny white dots on the water or ice. But yesterday the further I traveled on the auto-loop tour road\u00a0the closer they were to the road. This was the scene from the west side looking east as an adult Bald Eagle surveyed its icy\u00a0kingdom with many swans in the far background. The calls of swans filled the air wherever I went and that time of morning it was eerily enchanting but at first\u00a0most them were so far\u00a0away that even through my big lens\u00a0some of them\u00a0could be tricky to locate.<\/p>\n

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1\/2500, f\/9, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

But once I arrived at the south end of the loop road everything changed. There was a large group of perhaps 150 swans close to the road and they weren’t nervous at all, even when a couple of vehicles came by. I suspect that at least part of the\u00a0reason they’ve become much less nervous is because hunting season is over.<\/p>\n

I spent 44 magical minutes with them as they rested, exercised their wings\u00a0and even squabbled with each other. Occasionally a few other swans would fly in and join the\u00a0group and others would fly off so it was a wonderful but often frantic experience for me as I tried to adjust my camera settings and lens selections (I was using 3 different lenses on three different cameras) to photograph individuals and groups of swans on the water and then adjust to the always unpredictable flights of swans into or out of the group. It was a tun(dra) of fun!<\/p>\n

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1\/800, f\/9, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

When swans lifted off I was occasionally able to get stands of phragmites in the background which I think adds interest. Usually they took off in small groups so it was difficult to isolate a single swan. This was one of the times I succeeded.<\/p>\n

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1\/2500, f\/9, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

They would often signal when they were about to take off by bobbing their heads and becoming noisier. This was one of the few times I was able to get clean, sharp shots of two or more\u00a0birds taking off without having other swans in the photo. I love the running poses.<\/p>\n

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1\/3200, f\/8, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Here I like the vertically\u00a0stretched-out wing and the layered clouds in the background.<\/p>\n

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1\/640, f\/9, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS II USM @ 263 mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Occasionally I switched to my smaller zoom lens to try to get multiple birds sharp and provide a better sense of the setting. If you listen to this entire\u00a0sound clip<\/a> you’ll hear what I heard up close in this situation – first their noisy calls and then the sounds of a group of them taking off. Those huge wings and splashing feet make a lot of noise too.<\/p>\n

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1\/4000, f\/7.1, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Despite the homogenous background this is a shot I was very happy to get. It may look like I’m shooting\u00a0nearly straight up at the swan but in reality it was banking at almost 45 degrees and I was shooting almost horizontally. If you look closely you’ll see that its neck is twisted to keep its head level at that severe flight angle. I don’t often see a 15 lb. bird banking this steeply.<\/p>\n