Category Archives: Madre de Dios River

Flyby (Black Skimmers)

May
24
2017
by doug@douglaswalch.com | 2 Comments

Click to enlarge

Knowing how the shot was taken, imagine my surprise when I viewed this image on my camera’s LCD screen. I was even more delighted when I pulled it up on desktop’s screen for processing.

This capture of black skimmers was taken from the bow of our river boat on the Madre de Dios River. We were traveling downstream at about 30 mph.  I know this because I judged the speed to be close to the speed I use to water ski at on Ten Mile Lake in Oregon.  This is fast for being on the water.

The skimmers had to be flying faster as they flew alongside us and then passing across our bow from the right hand side of the boat. So the boat was moving, the skimmers were moving and I was moving a bit like being on a gimbal, trying to keep my balance, while keeping the birds in the view finder as they zoomed by. It all happened in about 5 seconds.

All partners need to pay consideration towards the fact that either one of them is not able to have a baby. official website viagra 25 mg
In short, I’m amazed the birds are in such good focus with great detail visible in the wings. This is not to mention they are pretty cool birds, built for flying fast. I hope you can view this on a screen larger than your cell phone.

Here’s the exposures details:

f/8 @ 1/6400 sec, ISO 1250, Exp. Bias -0.7, 400mm

Also posted in Birds, Peru

Madre de Dios River

May
10
2017
by doug@douglaswalch.com | 2 Comments

Cocoi Heron, Madre de Dios River, Peru

Image 1 of 15

Click on image to enlarge

The central theme of our adventure into the Amazon River Basin and the Manu Biosphere Reserve was to experience the rich biodiversity of the area. More specifically, we were there to spot and identify birds. By the end of our adventure we had spotted and identified over 250 species – mostly birds, some of them rather rare. We also spotted monkeys, reptiles, sloths and tapirs.  The only thing I did not see that I was hoping to see was a  jaguar.

With this in mind, the morning of day three, we left the Cock-of-the-rock lodge in our travel van and continued down the road to Atalaya were we were loaded on to a river boat to begin our journey up the Madre de Dios River which would eventually feed into the Manu River and the reserve.
There have been so many jokes made on look at these guys viagra price the basis of those that purely enhance the current years earnings.

As a photographer, images were easier to get on the river than on the hikes we took each day. But I want to mention it was never easy.  On the river, the boat was always moving and the subjects were either moving, or too far away or both. On our hikes, the subjects were often high up in the jungle canopy, hidden in and amongst foliage, too far away and back lit by the sky. My camera, with a 400 mm telephoto is heavy and impossible to hold steady.  All this required me to jack up the ISO to 1000 or higher to get a faster shutter speed. Even with auto-focus enabled, it was a challenge.  I cannot tell you how many killer shots I missed. And there were times when there were two and three different subjecst to capture all at the same time.  But, as you will see from the images on this posting and future postings, I came home with enough keepers to make me smile.