Looking for the bird.

Saturday May 4th a group of club members led by Sandy Selesky went on a birding field trip to Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge. “…Mount Auburn is first and foremost a cemetery, but it is also a National Historic Landmark, a botanical garden, an outdoor museum of art and architecture and an important habitat for urban wildlife.”

“Mount Auburn’s collection of over 5,500 trees includes nearly 700 species and varieties. Thousands of very well-kept shrubs and herbaceous plants  weave through the cemetery’s hills, ponds, woodlands, and clearings. The cemetery contains more than 10 miles (17 km) of roads and many paths.”

This surely describes Mount Auburn. It is beautiful place to take your camera for bird photography.  I unfortunately don’t have the lenses for bird photography but I went anyway because I knew about the many, many different photo opportunities at Mount Auburn and without fail it was certainly so on Saturday – and without a long lens I still got a good picture of a robin. It was a GREAT day.

Sandy and members sighted  eighteen birds (in a short 3 hour time period and had the opportunity to take photos of many of them. The birds sighted were:

Flicker, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Red-tailed Hawk (by Julie and Sandy in Dell eating a robin and being dive-bombed and struck on the back by other robins), Robins, Cedar Waxwings, Blue-headed Vireo, Scarlet Tanager, Hermit Thrush, Wood Thrush, Catbirds, Baltimore Orioles, Mallards, White-throated Sparrows, House Sparrows, Mourning Doves, Red-winged Blackbirds, Black and White Warbler and a White-breasted Nuthatch, Parula Warbler.  Also spotted – turtles and muskrats at Willow Pond.

Thank you Sandy for a great day.

On Saturday April 21, 11 NVPC members took a field trip to Wilton Falls in nearby Wilton, New Hampshire. New members Lydia Rogers and Bob Fesmire joined us as well as our guest Khac Thai.

In spite of the lack of rainfall, there was sufficient water to provide great images. At the top of the falls, the water flowed over one set of rocks and then divided into larger and smaller sections through the middle and lower parts of the falls. The warm weather that we have had brought out the beautiful green moss that clings to the rocks along side the falls, allowing for great contrast with the running water.

The changing conditions from cloudy to sunny challenged all of us to adapt and be creative. Depending on the shots that were being taken, photographers had polarizing filters and neutral density filters on and off. Several photographers were taking bracketed shots for High Dynamic Range post processing.

Directions to the falls. From the parking area, begin your trip to the falls by walking down an old dirt road. After about 0.1 mile, a spur trail will lead left about 100 feet to a small but pretty 3-foot cascade. To reach the main falls, continue further along the old road for 0.1 mile and you will reach a small reservoir and a dam. Garwin Falls is only about 300 feet further downstream, accessible by an easy trail that swings left and down to the base of the falls.

The best part of the day - talking photography at the end of a Field Trip