Photo walk among the birds

The shape of Heron’s Head Park (shown here courtesy of Google Maps) does look amazingly similar to the head of a heron, viewed upside-down.

Background on this post

Every year, generally in October, the KelbyOne photography-educational organization puts together a worldwide photo walk (multiple photo walks around the globe take place on the same day). I’ve participated in many of them over the years, finding them useful for exploring places I might not have otherwise visited and for meeting people with similar interests in photography.

This year I signed up for one of the walks that took place in San Francisco at a little-known (to me) shoreline park in the southeast corner of the City where I’d have least expected a nature park to exist (click the link under the map image at the top of this post to see the satellite view of the park). Moreover, the volunteer leaders of the walk, Vinish and Neha, are a married couple of “birders” whose description of the walk was politely clear that it would be oriented toward “birding,” bird photography, and the protection of the birds and their habitat.

Those of you who know me, or who are regular readers of this blog, know that I am not a wildlife photographer, and certainly not a birder. It is not that I have anything against photographing animals in the wild but rather that I’m just not that specifically focused on that aspect of nature photos. My ‘druthers’ are landscape photography, both natural and built by people, and travel photos. On the other hand, if I come across birds or other animals while engaging in that pursuit, I do my best to capture an interesting image of it or them.

Having provided the above caveat about me and wildlife photography, I deliberately chose this particular photo walk just because I wanted to practice improving my very limited experience of wild animal photography. And I should add here, that I surprisingly found this particular photo walk experience to be among the most satisfying I’ve had in a long time. For me, this was the first photo walk offered in my regional area that was scheduled to start early in the morning (for me, a very important and positive consideration). Also, the group size was specifically designed to be smaller than usual, which helped me learn by watching and getting answers to questions. And the leaders were most supportive: by providing advice about the locale, by being most generous with access to resources specifically about birding, and especially by helping me identify many of the bird images I eventually captured.

They also seem to be growing a small community of birders as described briefly in this direct quote, “We aim to build a fun, supportive community where we can share and learn birding and photography techniques together.” If you have an interest in a photographic birding community, you might visit their website at LazyBirders.com or give them a shout via email to “Lazy Birders” at lazybirders@gmail.com.

The photo walk

I departed my home at around 6 AM knowing it would take me somewhat less than an hour to reach the Heron’s Head Park a bit before the 7 AM start time. Coming up the peninsula on US 101 had me driving mostly in the dark until finally the sky started to become less black as I approached the City. The last several miles of 101 just before the junction with Interstate 280 are very flat, straight, and close to the bay and a quick, unobstructed, glance toward the east showed me that an interesting sunrise was starting to develop.

At a bit past 7 AM all those intending to participate in the walk were there, had been introduced to the leaders and each other, and began to walk into the park. By that time the sunrise was fully developed with lots of color in the sky and the sun itself still behind the Oakland hills across the bay. Many of us quickly setup for grand sunrise exposures. Here is one from my several captures that I enjoyed most:

Once I had the the sunrise image captured (and out of my system), I began to seek out birds to photograph. It wasn’t long before I came across this Blue Heron that seemed to be posing for photos (compare the shape of its head with the map outline of the park at the top of the post).

I kept an eye on this Heron after this shot and, after a few moments, he began to walk forward. I thought I might get a different standing position from him when I realized he was unfolding his wings and was tuning up to fly. He started to swoop to his left, close to the water and away from the shore as I tried to quickly line up, focus, and shoot. I managed to capture six images of him flying away; only one was worthy of showing (and I began to get an idea of how hard it is to get good images of birds in flight — as well as the excitement of that challenge).

And the sad truth is, the bigger birds like this one are easier to photograph (in flight) than the smaller ones. Those big wings move slower, especially when the birds have been at rest, and the birds are generally slower (when compared to smaller birds which seem to flit [maybe even teleport? 😃] very quickly from place to place). This Heron turned out to be the only bird I was able to capture fairly close up in flight that day (in my defense, most of the birds were feeding and not flying so my opportunities seemed quite scant).

Other people (not in our group) seemed to come to the park for other purposes; some were walking their dogs and others were being walked by their dogs. Some just came out to enjoy the sun and the quiet, and a few were fishing (like this woman, below).

Here are three photos (of four different birds) that I believe I’ve never encountered before that morning.

And here is a slideshow of four other types of birds that, although I may not have photographed them before this photo walk, I had some fairly familiar — to at least a passing recognition of, from my past. In all honesty, I did have to ask about the Cormorants to confirm that they were birds that did dive under the water for food and therefore could often be found standing in the sun to dry their feathers.

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I hope you enjoyed reading about my first serious excursion into bird photography. The other participants in the photo walk, and particularly the walk leaders, Vinish and Neha, made this an extremely positive experience for me. I’m convinced that I’ll be trying to improve on my wildlife photography as a result.

If you would like to see any of the photos presented in this post but larger, with more color and detail fidelity, take a look at my San Francisco Bay Area album in my CedBennett.Photography website or the 2024 Album at my Flickr site; both sites offer the opportunity to show the images enlarged, even close to the full size of the viewing monitor.