The small lake at Spata is here again!

It was a quite wet winter this year. The heavy rains here at Athens contributed to the creation of the small seasonal lake at Spata area just beside the Athens International Airport. This is the second time this lake is created during the last few years. Water is not as much as it was the last time (back in 2011), but it should be enough to maintain the little lake during the entire spring migration period.

I went there 10 days ago and the first spring visitors were already there. The Ruff shown in the following photo was one of them.

It seems that spring migration will be very interesting this year…

Beyond Autofocus (part 2)

Do you remember the previous “Beyond Autofocus” post here? It was about one year before and it was when I first tried to focus using the “Liveview focus” option of the Canon 7D. I was satisfied with the results and I started using the 2x extender again on my 500 f/4L IS lens when extreme reach is required on static subjects.

Last weekend I came across a similar situation and with the same subject! On my way to mount Parnassos I came across a female Merlin again! After taking many pictures using the 2x extender (teleconverter) and I was satisfied with the results, another thought came into my mind: What if I use both 2x and 1.4x teleconverters stacked together? (This is possible only with the second generation of Canon extenders. The feature was removed in the third generation that Canon released recently. Fortunately I haven’t yet upgraded my set of extenders so it was easy for me to do the test). There was enough light and since the Merlin wasn’t going anywhere, I stacked my Canon 1.4x II extender at the rear of the Canon 2x II extender for a focal length of 1400mm. Given the crop factor of the 7D this is the equivalent of 2240mm in Full Frame. Liveview focusing with the 7D was without problems beside the fact that it was even slower than before. Nevertheless the focus was quite accurate. I managed to make about 10 images before the bird finally left and almost all of them were in focus. Image quality was decent and so was sharpness given the use of 800 ISO on the 7D and the fact that we are talking about lots of glass between the image sensor and the subject. The biggest problem was some chromatic aberration but even this was not so much of a problem. The image shown here is the full frame capture without any crop. You can view the Exif data by clicking on the picture as always.

Of course it is not possible to judge image quality from an image 800 pixels wide. For this reason I am also showing a 100% crop from a spot with some detail in order to judge image quality yourself. This crop is unsharpened. This means sharpness at the RAW file was set to 0 during conversion and no sharpening was done later during image processing. After that, I am seriously thinking of using two 2x extenders for my next Merlin :-)…

The swimming pool

After visiting the same place many times, you know exactly where the best spots are and what you will probably find there. In addition there are always some spots that stand out of the rest and even in a “less than perfect” day, usually provide some special photographic moments. One of those places for me is Kalamas river estuaries. I went there during the holiday season after visiting Lake Kerkini (I did not manage to post anything for this visit due to the minimal free time I’ve had since then).

Kalamas River estuaries are one of the less popular wetlands of Greece for birdwatchers and nature photographers and this is probably due to their location. They are crammed in the northwest of the country and quite far away from Athens and Thessaloniki. After making many visits there during the last years I have come to the conclusion that it is one of the best places in Greece to photograph wildlife. It combines easy access to many spots of the wetland (since there are several roads crossing it) and several interesting species.

One of my favorite spots there is a small lake with enough fish and with great light for photography especially in the mornings. Due to its small size and because of the fact that the water is always calm, I have given it the nickname “the swimming pool”. You can usually find there Egrets, gulls, terns and even Kingfishers fishing. During my last visit I even found a nice flock of European Spoonbills feeding there! The best thing is that the birds do not seem to be bothered with my presence and as a result there are good chances for nice pictures.

The above pictures are only a small sample from my last visit there.

At the estuaries of the Gallikos River

During the Christmas holidays I was able to visit some of the wetlands at the North Greece. Since then, I was so busy that I didn’t have the time to write something about them. In the next days I will try to write something for most of these visits since I had so much fun and I got so many nice pictures. In fact I made so many images that I haven’t seen all of them yet.
The first place that I visited was the Gallikos and Axios estuaries just outside the city of Thessaloniki. I only had a few hours but the place knows how to reward all visitors and especially nature photographers with nice pictures.
I didn’t have much time to visit all the known places or to search and find rare bird species. Perhaps the only rare species I saw was a group of Dalmatian Pelicans, but in Greece this is a common sight in many wetlands at the North of the country during Winter.

I was surprised to find so many Flamingos there and this was also the case in many other northern wetlands I visited. Every common wader species was also there in small numbers. Redshanks, Green, Wood and Common Sandpipers, Greenshanks, Little Stints, Grey Plovers, Curlews, Pied Avocets and many more. They were all there.
There were very few ducks with the Common Shelduck being the most common species at least at the spots that I have visited. I had the chance to make nice images of a group of three Oystercatchers. It was the first time that I managed to get so close to them. A group of Great Crested Grebes was fishing into the sea just in front of the Gallikos River estuaries and I did manage to get some nice pictures of them. Unfortunately a large group of Red-breasted Mergansers choose to stay away from the shore.

The day was over before I had the time to realize it. I had to leave the place at noon and by then my opinion that Gallikos and Axios River estuaries are one of the best wetlands of Greece for nature photographers, was once more justified. I hope to visit the place again soon.

Experimenting with a Little Grebe

It has been some time now since my last visit to Schinias wetland, so I decided to go there and check the place out. Unfortunately although I went to every known location it wasn’t my day. There were very few birds and even the Greater Spotted Eagle that spends the winter there made just one appearance far away from me. My last hope was to visit the Olympic Rowing Center of Athens which is located just beside the wetland and you can usually find something interesting there. I was very disappointed when I found that beside the Black-headed Gulls and Coots that were there in abundance, there were very few birds and even these were quite far for photos. I only found a Little Grebe that was feeding close to the shore where I was standing. As a result although this species is quite common, I decided to spend some time with it in order to go home with a few photos for processing.

I lay on a small wooden pier and soon the little bird was fishing close to me without being bothered by my presence. When it was on my right, the sun was behind me and the conditions were ideal for photos, while when it was on my left the sun was behind the bird. In these cases you usually stop taking pictures or you can try to make some silhouettes with better results when it is early in the morning or late in the afternoon. In my case and since it was already noon (but the light was not so harsh) I decided to make some pictures ignoring the light direction. I switched the camera to manual and set the shooting parameters so that the subject will be properly exposed. Two of the resulting images are shown here. It is clear that in the image created in backlight conditions the background seems to be mostly “burned” without any color info but the Little Grebe looks Ok since it is properly exposed. I remind you that you can see the Exif info for all images by clicking on the pictures.

At the end of the day I must admit that I like both images and I am not sure if my preference is the normal or the hi-key image. What is your preference?

Oropos

Although I was quite busy lately, I managed to visit “Skala Oropou” (a wetland just outside Athens) twice. Although it is one of the most important wetlands in Attica, there were not many birds there yet. The best observation was a group of shags. It wasn’t easy but finally I managed to get close to them and get some pictures.

I also found many gulls there, mainly Black-headed and Mediterranean Gulls and quite a few Sandwich Terns. All these species choose Oropos wetland in order to overwinter every year.

In my second visit, there were hundreds of them and viewing them moving around the wetland was an amazing spectacle.
There were very few waders since the water was still not enough. I saw only a few Redshanks, Kentish Plovers, Grey Plovers and a Snipe. Grey Herons, Little Egrets and the not so common Great Egrets were already in the area, while the first Reed Buntings appeared around the lagoon.

Messolonghi Reloaded!

The previous weekend I visited Messolonghi again. This was my last visit there for this autumn. I went there with George and Michael two fellow nature photographers. We went to all the places that I had gone in my last visit there 2 weeks ago. We found almost all species that I had seen during my previous visit there except the Broad-billed Sandpipers. In addition we saw a Lesser Black-backed Gull although it is still rather early for that species.

We found a spot where the Caspian Terns were feeding and we managed to get some nice pictures of this quite rare Tern which can be seen at Messolonghi all year round. At the same place we found four Bar-tailed Godwits feeding in shallow waters near the beach.

During this visit we also had the time to visit the estuaries of the Acheloos river at Louros beach. We didn’t find many wader species there but we did manage to see some birds of prey such as an Osprey and a young Peregrine Falcon although we didn’t manage to get any decent pictures.

Sunday evening during our return trip I made a first quick preview of the photos of the day. Messolonghi is without doubt the premier place in southern Greece for photographing waders.

The autumn migration at Messolonghi

The autumn migration is in full swing. The best place in South Greece to watch and photograph all migrating wader species is Messolonghi. So I visited the large lagoon adjacent to the city (called Klisova) twice. The first time was in the last days of August and I went there alone. The second time was just a few days ago with the fellow wildlife photographer George Alexandris.

I focused mainly on wading birds and tried to find some unusual species that can be found there at this time of year. The big problem for wildlife photographers in Messolonghi is that although there are many subjects to photograph, they are usually quite far and there no way getting close enough to get decent photos. This time, on my first visit when there were not many birds there yet, I searched and discovered some points that can give good photographic opportunities for “difficult” species. So in the second visit we were quite prepared.

In Messolonghi we met all common wader species. Wood Sandpipers, Redshanks, Greenshanks, Little Stints, Curlew Sandpipers, Dunlins, Kentish Plovers, Semipalmated Plovers, Turnstones, Curlews, Avocets all were there. But we also managed to take pictures of some less common for Greece wader species. So we saw three Broad-billed Sandpipers, three Bar-tailed Godwits, several Red Knots and Sanderlings and even one Greater Sand Plover. Although I didn’t manage to get close to the Greater Sand Plover, this was the first time that I managed to get some “almost” decent pictures of this species.

The second visit was so successful that we decided to go back again before the end of September. Stay tuned!

First observation of Buff-breasted Sandpiper in Greece

A few days ago a Buff-breasted Sandpiper was spotted in Athens inside the Spata airport. This is an American bird species and in some rare cases it is spotted in Europe mainly in the Western Europe. For Greece this was the first observation and was made by John Vlatsiotis and then also by Nikos Fokas. They are both working in airport’s bird control department. Thanks to them we obtained permission to enter the airport area and to watch the bird for a while. The bird was very tame and did not seem to be bothered by our presence, so we did get some very nice photos of it.

It turned out that we were very lucky because the next day the Buff-breasted Sandpiper was gone! This is the 447th bird species observed in our country.

The Rufous Bush Robins at Spata

Rufous Bush Robin is a relatively rare bird species for Greece. It is perhaps the last bird species that migrates to Europe early in June and stays here until October. In Greece there are few nesting places and fortunately one of them is located at Spata, right beside the Athens airport.
Unfortunately the weather was not on my side this year. Whenever I was able to visit the place and get some pictures, it was either too windy or the temperature was 40 degrees Celsius…

This is perhaps my best photo of this species for this year. I hope that next year I will be luckier.