Sorry for the lack of updates over the past week. I have been pretty busy with work. The in-laws were over last weekend so I didn’t get to go anywhere far. Although I managed to escape early Saturday morning to look for the Spotted Owl family up in Placerita Canyon. Unfortunately I struck out on both adults and the chick. It wasn’t entirely disappointing as I did happen to find a Black-chinned Hummingbird nest with the mother feeding her newborn’s:

Black-chinned Hummingbird

And a couple weeks ago a Northern Mockingbird fledged in our backyard. It’s been waking us up every morning with it’s annoying squawking but I finally captured it in a moment of silence as his mother was feeding him:

Northern Mockingbird

Sorry to say, there won’t be much in the way of updates this weekend either. We’ll be in Las Vegas for a mini-vacation. I may be going to Arizona the following weekend though so stay tuned.

This sunday I visited the Least Tern nesting colony located at Huntington State Beach in Orange County. Since the Terns nest in a very popular area near Newport Beach, the entire area is fenced in to protect the nests from being trampled on by unaware beach-goers. There were more than a hundred successful nests and many with two eggs. The project is almost entirely supported by volunteers which has a few benefits including free admission to any California State Park! You can read more about the Least Tern and Snowy Plover Project here.

Least Tern With Egg

Least Tern With Newborn Chick

Volcano erupts in Galapagos Islands
13 hours ago

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — A volcano on the largest of the Galapagos Islands has begun erupting and authorities are evaluating possible dangers to the island’s famed plant and animal life, officials said Friday.

Rangers and tour guides spotted lava flowing down the northeastern flank of the Cerro Azul volcano on the seahorse-shaped island of Isabela late Thursday, the Galapagos National Park said in a statement.

Ecuador’s Geophysics Institute said that satellite data and a flyover of the island by park officials showed a “small amount of ash” coming out of the volcano, located on the southwestern edge of the island.

Park official Oscar Carvajal told Radio Quito that as many as four lava flows “have consumed a lot of vegetation,” but do not pose a threat to the famed Galapagos tortoises.

Neither was the eruption endangering people on the island, park official Vinicio Pauta said.

The 5,600-foot (1,690-meter) Cerro Azul — one of five active volcanoes on the island — last erupted in September 1998, causing minor damage to plant life. Cerro Azul is located in the unpopulated southwestern corner of the island.

The Galapagos Islands, 625 miles (1,000 kilometers) off of Ecuador’s Pacific coast, are known for unique plant and animal life, including giant tortoises, marine iguanas and seabirds known as blue-footed boobies. Charles Darwin’s observations of the islands’ finches helped inspire his theory of evolution.

I’ve been going through all of our images and found some pretty funny “action shot” images Sara took of me while were in the Galapagos. The pictures do a good job illustrating how close one can approach all of the wildlife on the Galapagos Islands. It made me wonder what the birds think…do they think we’re other birds as well? One juvenile Nazca Booby seemed to think so as he kept following me around thinking I was his mother! To see them all, click here:

Nazca Booby attacking me!

Photographing Swallow-tailed Gulls

Nazca Booby at my feet

Smiling for the camera

Photographing Nazca Booby

Still working on all of my images and video footage from our trip and just put 7 videos up on Youtube. Most of them are from snorkeling footage - you can check them out here:

As many of you already know, Sara and I were at the Galápagos Islands for the past ten days. We lived on a boat the entire time as we traveled from island to island which is why I was unable to post any updates during that time. We only had cell phone service one day while we were near Santa Cruz island.

Our tour did not include all of the islands but we visited nine (9) of the top islands: San Cristobal (Chatham), Espanola (Hood), Santa Cruz (Indefatigable), Santiago (James), Bartolome, Genovesa (Tower), Fernandina (Narborough), Isabela (Albemarle) and North Seymour.

Some of the highlights included the Galápagos Penguin, the Flightless Cormorant, Land Iguanas, Marine Iguanas, Waved Albatross, Frigatebirds and of course the famous Blue-footed Boobies!

We went with the tour group International Expeditions. It was well organized although we were a bit disappointed by the fact it wasn’t completely geared toward “photographers” like we were led to believe. Despite that fact, our naturalist guides and boat crew did a wonderful job trying to accomodate everyone’s needs however. Would we go on another IE trip? I think that answer depends on how they address the fact they labeled this as a “Photo Tour” so why weren’t we out at each island at sunrise and sunset?

We did have a professional photographer on the boat with us, Wolfgang Kaehler. He was an absolute pleasure to be around. Not only did I learn a lot about photography from him but I learned a bit about all of the places he’s been in the world - over 200 countries! Needless to say that inspired me to already start planning our trip to Antarctica (South Georgia and Falklands) and next on the list is Africa (Kenya, Tanzania, Namibia, Zambia, Botswana and Madagascar).

In addition to the photography we also went snorkeling around a few of the islands. Not much in the way of coral but lots of beautiful fish and we even swam with Galápagos Penguins, Galápagos Sea Lions, Galápagos Sea Turtles and White-tipped Reef Sharks!!

Now on to the pictures… I took over 4,500 photos (and probably deleted over a thousand of those). Close to 35 gigs of images left after I filtered out the bad ones. All of my favorite photos from Galápagos can be found here. Here’s a sample of some:

I spent a couple hours out at Ballona last night playing with my new 1D Mk III but unfortunately there just wasn’t that much around so I didn’t get to shoot too many pictures. I was, however, blown away with how faster the auto-focus is on the 1D compared to my 40D. Not only that, the AI servo tracks incredibly well on moving targets. Since I’ll be busy packing the next couple days, I don’t think I’ll have any time to play with it more before we leave for the Galapagos Friday morning. Here’s a few of the shots I managed to rattle off yesterday:

After seeing all the photographers at Crane Creek with 1D bodies, I decided to give into the “hype” that Artie and the rest of the gang have been raving about. It just arrived and I’m charging the batteries as we speak. I hope to get out to Ballona this afternoon to try it out!

Stay tuned for images from the 1D later this evening….

I am now back home from my 9-day trip to Northern Ohio. Had a great time photographing all of the migrating passerines at Magee Marsh, Crane Creek and the rest of the hot-spots along Lake Erie. I recorded a total of 25 new photo birds and much better shots of many of the birds I already had.

Now to get ready for our trip to Ecuador and the Galapagos! We leave this Friday.

Some new photos toward the end of the trip I have not posted yet:

Was just spending a bit more time going through other photos I took last weekend and realized I had skipped over quite a few good ones! I shall share some with you here: