Cazan Lake

While I haven't made it up to Cazan Lake yet, I've gotten reports that both Great Egrets and Roseate Spoonbills are there in numbers. Cazan Lake has been one of our best places to photograph both of those birds as well as woodpeckers. Egrets had arrived in January but had left in early February due to frigid temperatures. Fortunately, things are back on track for the April tour.

Backyard Birds

While I've been anxious to get out shooting, I"ve been photographing birds showing up in the backyard. The highlight of this was the visit of a flock of Cedar Waxwings. The image below was taken on that morning.

Pelicans

This morning was my first outing to my location for pelicans. Every year I go in March to practice photographing birds in flight. These slow-moving targets are an excellent warmup for photographing Osprey on the tours. I couldn't stay long, but I got several nice shots, such as the one below.

FoCal

I've written before about Reikan FoCal software and targets for fine-tuning the autofocus on DSLRs. Every spring, I retest all my lenses with each camera body and make sure they are optimally set. The latest version adds a stability test as well as a multitest. The stability test compares lens performance with and without Vibration Reduction turned on or off. It also measures your ability to get sharp shots at slower shutter speeds–a great tool to get to know your equipment better.

The Multitest runs a series of tests and gives an excellent overall health check for your lens and camera body. Also, it will let you know what the sharpest aperture is for your lens.

Tours

Roseate Spoonbill–Cazan Lake–April 15th, 2019

Space is still available for the following 2021 tours:

April 18th Louisiana Bird Photo Tour
May 5th Louisiana Bird Photo Tour
November 14th Louisiana Nature Photo Tour
November 29th Louisiana Nature Photo Tour

Please consider joining us for one of these tours. More information is found here.