Arkansas Wildlife Blog and Gallery
Buffalo National River and NW Arkansas
Condition on Gaither Mountain this morning were unseasonably cool with a slight breeze. The sky looks cloudy and there is promise of a spectacular sunrise. I am pretty excited about getting out. Yesterday I was grinding on websites work all day, and on publicity for this blog. It seems to be taking off pretty well. In three days it has gone up to 300 hits a day, pretty good in a world drowning in web sites.
Looks like fall color will be early this year for sure. We are knocking on the door of two weeks in this cold spell. This is mid September weather, and 6 degrees below seasonal averages.
This morning promises to be a high ISO and heavy tripod kind of day. The light is dimmed by light cloud cover and, that , coupled with the fog pretty much guarantees that my 5D will be pegged at ISO 1600. Thank god for nose filters. I can make golf ball noise silky smooth, but I don't like the way that makes animal fur textureless. I can't be the only one who notices that and objects to it. Perhaps I should mask out the animal body fur to preserve some texture.
Well just call me Nostradamos, it was a real bugger today. I had such a photo "jones" going I went knowing it would be tough. The sun really never came out, it still hasn't. Now paradoxically this no sun junk is often pretty good for seeing wildlife, but the resulting photos are very tough. In fact, I decided to do a rough pre post today so any of you that are coming could get a preview. I got some useful stuff, but a hard-nosed photographer might have scrubbed, clearly an addict would not.
I did my customary survey of wildlife before shooting. All the north fields were empty until about half way. The last field north of the mill pond had the bull herd in it again. The 3 mill pond trumpeters were still around, I think they are supposed to migrate fairly soon. The farm field just before the Buffalo River on the south end of the valley had some whitetails grazing. They seem to be concentrated down on that end now for a few days. I swung around at the south trailhead and returned to the bull herd (same herd, same field, new day).
I shot a few shots of these animals, but nothing much good was in the offing. After about 15 minutes I went north up the valley and into Lost Valley. I thought there was some chance one of the herds would be in the field there, since they had left the valley. Going in I was surprised by at least two dozen buzzards hanging out in a freshly hayed field. Grabbed a useful picture of a black vulture.
THEN, I decided to do some riverwhacking. If they can bushwhack, I can riverwhack. Wading in the Buffalo on all those slippery rocks is much harder than it appears. I hiked upsteam from the Ponca low water bridge to do some prospecting. Kicked up a couple of elk that posed for me a bit then wandered off. One of them is a irregular bull that I photographed last year. He was accompanied by a cow who really stared me down a bit. Also a pretty good pose of the weird rack on the 2 year old bull. Other than these two pictures, the river was also a dud. So I think maybe I got one useful picture today, maybe two.
Coming back I decided to hike up the bluff as opposed to walking back on the river. As is my standard practice, that turned out to be a dumb idea. It would have been much easier just to backtrack in the river. I would estimate that the climb to the top of the bluff was about 500 feet above the river level, pretty challenging bushwhacking up to the BRT. Up from the Ponca Low Water bridge there are at least one or two good vantage points to shoot tops down on the elk herd in the first field (after leaf off). The trail head is across the low water bridge and to the right. You will see a sign once you get up close to the entrance.
On the way back to Compton the deer were still running all over in the diffuse light, later than normal. One was an 8 point in velvet.
My next tutorial will be on dealing with dingy light in image editing. I will furnish an appropriately cruddy-light image for everyone to play with, along with my best take on salvaging those suckers. I have learned a lot about dealing with these, not that long ago I thought they were pure junk. This will be a very useful exercise for those coming down to visit. Otherwise you might imagine there are no pictures to be had, they really look awful on the camera back screen.
Looks like fall color will be early this year for sure. We are knocking on the door of two weeks in this cold spell. This is mid September weather, and 6 degrees below seasonal averages.
This morning promises to be a high ISO and heavy tripod kind of day. The light is dimmed by light cloud cover and, that , coupled with the fog pretty much guarantees that my 5D will be pegged at ISO 1600. Thank god for nose filters. I can make golf ball noise silky smooth, but I don't like the way that makes animal fur textureless. I can't be the only one who notices that and objects to it. Perhaps I should mask out the animal body fur to preserve some texture.
Well just call me Nostradamos, it was a real bugger today. I had such a photo "jones" going I went knowing it would be tough. The sun really never came out, it still hasn't. Now paradoxically this no sun junk is often pretty good for seeing wildlife, but the resulting photos are very tough. In fact, I decided to do a rough pre post today so any of you that are coming could get a preview. I got some useful stuff, but a hard-nosed photographer might have scrubbed, clearly an addict would not.
I did my customary survey of wildlife before shooting. All the north fields were empty until about half way. The last field north of the mill pond had the bull herd in it again. The 3 mill pond trumpeters were still around, I think they are supposed to migrate fairly soon. The farm field just before the Buffalo River on the south end of the valley had some whitetails grazing. They seem to be concentrated down on that end now for a few days. I swung around at the south trailhead and returned to the bull herd (same herd, same field, new day).
I shot a few shots of these animals, but nothing much good was in the offing. After about 15 minutes I went north up the valley and into Lost Valley. I thought there was some chance one of the herds would be in the field there, since they had left the valley. Going in I was surprised by at least two dozen buzzards hanging out in a freshly hayed field. Grabbed a useful picture of a black vulture.
THEN, I decided to do some riverwhacking. If they can bushwhack, I can riverwhack. Wading in the Buffalo on all those slippery rocks is much harder than it appears. I hiked upsteam from the Ponca low water bridge to do some prospecting. Kicked up a couple of elk that posed for me a bit then wandered off. One of them is a irregular bull that I photographed last year. He was accompanied by a cow who really stared me down a bit. Also a pretty good pose of the weird rack on the 2 year old bull. Other than these two pictures, the river was also a dud. So I think maybe I got one useful picture today, maybe two.
Coming back I decided to hike up the bluff as opposed to walking back on the river. As is my standard practice, that turned out to be a dumb idea. It would have been much easier just to backtrack in the river. I would estimate that the climb to the top of the bluff was about 500 feet above the river level, pretty challenging bushwhacking up to the BRT. Up from the Ponca Low Water bridge there are at least one or two good vantage points to shoot tops down on the elk herd in the first field (after leaf off). The trail head is across the low water bridge and to the right. You will see a sign once you get up close to the entrance.
On the way back to Compton the deer were still running all over in the diffuse light, later than normal. One was an 8 point in velvet.
My next tutorial will be on dealing with dingy light in image editing. I will furnish an appropriately cruddy-light image for everyone to play with, along with my best take on salvaging those suckers. I have learned a lot about dealing with these, not that long ago I thought they were pure junk. This will be a very useful exercise for those coming down to visit. Otherwise you might imagine there are no pictures to be had, they really look awful on the camera back screen.
Notes & Pics:
Boxley Valley Update -- 08/19/08
You can click on any of these images and they should appear in a new window. I didn't set it up as a popup because of popup blockers. Thanks to Chris Kennedy for suggesting this.