{"id":680,"date":"2010-08-22T14:46:45","date_gmt":"2010-08-22T18:46:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/?p=680"},"modified":"2010-08-23T14:57:22","modified_gmt":"2010-08-23T18:57:22","slug":"wings-over-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/?p=680","title":{"rendered":"Wings Over Water"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another high season here at the beach is nearly over, and it’s been a hot one. When I was a kid, it was a sad time for me, watching Summer end and going back to school. But now I find myself excited with Autumn approaching. The vacationing crowds depart, leaving locals and off-season visitors to relish the best that the Outer Banks has to offer.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Fall has always been my favorite season here. It’s not only a time for great weather and scenery, it’s also a time of transition and the spectacle of bird migration. I’m amazed every time I watch massive flocks of shorebirds navigate and feed along the beaches. Some of them make journeys of thousands of miles, and the shorelines here are a critical step in that flight.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The Red Knot is a good example. They make one of the longest migrations of any bird, traveling from their Arctic breeding grounds in Summer to southern South America in Winter, a distance of over 9,000 miles. I’ve seen them feeding voraciously on sand fleas and other organisms in the surf zone.<\/span><\/p>\n

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<\/a>Red Knots foraging on Ocracoke.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Some of the more common beach birds encountered are sanderlings, willets, black-bellied plovers with an occasional godwit or whimbrel. I’ve spent years watching them and trying to capture their images. I love how flocks can fly as a unit, wadded in tight packs. Their quick flight is erratic, so photographing them in the air is a challenge.<\/span><\/p>\n

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<\/a>Marbled Godwit<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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<\/a>Oystercatcher<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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<\/a>Sanderlings<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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<\/a>Willets<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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<\/a>Brown Pelican<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

This November will mark another annual celebration of Wings Over Water<\/strong><\/em>, and I was asked once again, to lead one of the many field trips. I decided to concentrate on bird photography at the beach. Wednesday afternoon on November 10th, I’ll meet a small group of participants at my studio to get acquainted, view some work and discuss photography. Then we’ll hit the beach via 4-wheel drive to do some shooting. Scheduling this trip around a low tide, this will be a great opportunity to see shorebirds and seabirds in action. You never know what you’ll see.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n


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Another high season here at the beach is nearly over, and it’s been a hot one. When I was a kid, it was a sad time for me, watching Summer end and going back to school. But now I find myself excited with Autumn approaching. The vacationing crowds depart, leaving locals and off-season visitors to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,3,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beach","category-birds","category-outer-banks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=680"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":693,"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680\/revisions\/693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}