Faranuf From The Madding Crowd: Adventures Living In The Chiricahua Mtns And On The Road: December 1 -- Just Another Remarkable Day at the Overton Wildlife Management Area...

And my new Canon 7D MK II is proving to be just a superb all-around camera -- but especially with birds, and with the addition of the 500 f4 lens and 1.4x TC, far-away birds, getting their IDs.. The Overton WMA is a "multi-use" area -- and right now every even day is a "hunt day", so the birds, waterfowl in particular, are naturally "spooked", seemingly when you have to do is just THINK of looking in their direction. So having the 500 f/4 lens, particularly with the 1.4x TC attached, making it a 1200mm lens, comes in handy when you don't want to disturb the birds by getting closer and causing them to flee. And as many of the birds are "way out there", shooting with the 7D MK II means you can crop the photo (the 7D's crop factor is 1.6x) and the details will hold as the 500 f/4 is a prime lens. So, here are a few establishing shots of the WMA to set the scene --

Did I mentioned it's autumn at the WMA? -- Looking east in early morning

Pintail Pond in the south section of the WMA

A duck hunter's blind and Pintail Pond looking north

Pintail Pond with the Valley of Fire in the distance

Gulls wheeling in the air above Pintail Pond

And what kind of gulls are those, you might ask? Well, this is a perfect segue into my main discussion, of the Canon 7D MKII and how it's perfectly suited to help ID birds in the field...

I started out the day at the Overton WMA at 7am, and caused my first waterfowl to go "quacking" off in the distance. I couldn't make out which duck they were at the time as I had only a distant "butt shot" view, but later, when zooming-in on the photos I'd taken, I was able to tell that they were Mallards, and marked them down as such in my BirdsEye BirdLog, for submitting a bird count to eBird --

In this next photo, I knew at the time that it was a Grebe -- but was it a Horned, or Eared? The difference between the two in winter plumage is somewhat subtle, so I couldn't make a positive ID as it was pretty far from me. So I took photos with the Canon 7D, MK II and 500 f/4 lens with a 1.4x TC attached (and I use the 10fps shooting mode, guaranteeing that at least one of the photos will turn out sharp; though the 500 has image stabilization, I AM shooting handheld) and while I'm not yet totally convinced, it looks to be -- according to my "National Geographic Field Guide to Birds of North America" -- a "paler winter" Eared Grebe, which can look an awful lot like Horned Grebe in winter. But Eared Grebes are more common here than Horned, so the law of averages go with Eared --

Also at Pintail Pond, where I saw the Mallards and Eared Grebe, there was a large "raft" of gulls,and from where I was standing along the shore -- and the fact that they were in the water, with more obvious markings hard to see -- I really couldn't make a definitive ID on them. There was, however, an obvious choice, given being in SE Nevada, but I still had to be sure...

So I waited until the whole flock flew up into the air, over the pond --

Then took in-flight photos of them -- and in cropping the photos in my pp program, my hunch was verified -- they were Ring-billed Gulls, with their "small mirror", or white patches, on their wingtips. The Ring-billed is the standard gull seen here at the WMA --

But, just to show you how "things" aren't always what they seem, and even the law of averages can go the other way -- my friend, naturalist and veteran birder, Ali Sheehey, said these are California Gulls, NOT Ring-billed -- and Californias can be seen in this small section of SE Nevada in winter. Thanks Ali! Next up, differentiating between Greater and Lesser Scaup is always a tricky business; Greater has a larger, rounder head than Lesser, whose head is also more "peaked". And in good light, the Lesser male's head has a purple "gloss" to it, while the Greater's can look green. Cropping the photo below to about 60%, I determined that these are Lesser Scaup, and they are much more common in this area than Greater, too. So again, the law of averages...

But once again, those darned law of averages aren't always reliable... My friend Ali Sheehey, upon viewing this photos, said the female on the right is a Lesser, the male in the middle is a GREATER (green head gloss, rounded head) and the male on the left is a possible Greater/Lesser hybrid. The Greater is rare for the area, so I had to go back into my eBird report for this day and edit the Scaups to Lesser and Greater, and put down the ID markings of the Greater, and let eBird know I had good photos in case of verification. Fascinating stuff -- at least to me! On to the next photo...I'd never seen Canvasbacks here at the WMA in the 3 months or so that I spent last winter, so I needed to crop the photo to make sure that's what these were, and put the sighting down on my checklist. And the smaller ducks are Ruddys ---

Finally, the next was taken at Honeybee Pond, the northernmost of the ponds at the WMA; it's a great place for all sorts of birds that favor water. In the photo you can see Great Egret, a Mallard drake, and 2 smaller ducks that look like -- I had to crop just to be sure --

a Green-winged Teal male and female. These were the only 2 Green-winged Teals that I could positively ID as sure during my time at the WMA yesterday, thus proving that the 7D MK II, with its superior AF tracking and lightning-fast 10fps is an essential tool for bird counts, and with the 500 f/4 lens, along with the 1.4x TC, will get you the photos and positive IDs when the birds will fly in the opposite direction if you dare get any closer to them.

Another thing I learned about the 7D MK II yesterday evening -- its high-ISO shots can be very useable for Web viewing. I was coming back to Overton after going to the Valley of Fire for some sunset shots (the sunset colors never happened) when I saw 2 Desert Bighorn Sheep just off the road. I slowed down, and they went nearly straight up a hill without missing a beat. But they were still close enough for my 500 lens, so I pulled off to the side of the road and took a bunch of photos. At least, I THOUGHT I was taking photos; after about a minute I look at the LCD screen on the back, and it was saying "no card"! DOH...I'd left the card back in the card reader attached to my MacBook Pro in Discovery. Luckily, I still had my landscape camera with card with me, so I put it into the MK II and luckily one of the sheep was still nearby. As it was getting dark, I though I'd try out a high ISO shot of ISO 10,000 (!) -- something I would never have attempted with any camera I've had, even if they had that high of an ISO setting (they didn't). Judge for yourself how it turned out; no noise reduction was used, ISO 10,000 mind you --

Wow. And I REALLY tempted fate by trying a photo at ISO 16,000 --

This one is noticeably grainier than the previous -- but it's still useable on the Web. I'm still astounded at the abilities of this camera -- and am ever so glad I purchased it. One last bird photo -- a Wilson's Snipe that I caught out in the open, in a stream; looks like it was cooling off --

I think the 7D MK II will take care of my Camera Lust for another 5 years at least....And to end things for this post, here are a few more scenics, taken at the WMA yesterday --

A washed-out road and channel cutting between the two southernmost ponds (flood damage from the September storm)