Photo of the day: Common goldeneye

February 22, 2012
birding, Birds, birdwatching, photography, travel, Wildlife
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Last winter while walking along the Boiling River at Yellowstone National Park Juan Pons and I spotted three common goldeneyes (Bucephala clangula) floating down stream. There were two females and a male and we hid and waited among the sagebrush. Its smell, which I adore, filled every ounce of space around me and stucked to my clothes and skin for hours.

These birds are very easily scared and are very hard to get close to.  I managed to hide very well and patiently in the bushes and after a few failed tries snatched this shot. I specially like the fact that the photo pays tribute to the bird’s name: “goldeneye”.

The nature of painting

February 20, 2012
art, nature, painting
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Now that I have been deeply involved with photographing nature for over a year, I decided to look back at my pictorial work from 1997-2006 with a different perspective. Maybe, I thought, I would now look back and find new caves in my work and maybe, just maybe, find the energy to get back to the studio and in front of a new blank canvas.

It turns out I did. I remember writing my thesis back in 2000 and having in mind subjects like maps, constellations, identity struggles, geography, socio-political events… but back then, nature was not part of any of my themes or concerns… but it was always there. In almost every painting or drawing nature was alive and breathing. From the organic lines to the few figurative elements in some of the paintings to the animal-like expressions of daily objects… actually those hair clips that I drew over and over in 02 and 03, today look like birds to me. Don’t they?

It is hard to get back into the painting mind frame, but I do feel the hunger in my eyes to interpret with charcoal and acrylics everything I see. Is it a cycle? Was this absence from painting necessary? Is it just a business hangover effect? I’m not quite sure, but today I looked at a Cy Twombly painting and felt the same overwhelming emotion I did ten years ago. I think tonight I’ll unearth the Francis Bacon books and Robert Motherwell’s writings. I think today something happened… I am sure it did, because today I feel like painting again.


Yes, but why birds?

February 15, 2012
birding, Birds, nature, photography
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photo by Juan Pons

I move in a lot of circles. I can glide, most times comfortably, among the hippies, the musicians, the jocks, the business people, the average dudes, the millionaires… after all, excluding the latter I’ve hanged out as a part of those groups at some point in my life. Today I have a very broad variety of friends but really, my life is built around my family, my company and nature. If you know Dominican Republic you are then aware that this is a small country, and somehow, even though we are 10MM, we know each other. Well, not everyone, but at least in Santo Domingo, we all know each other, specially if like me, you attended 5 different high schools and at some point were a swimmer, a rock climbing aficionado, a wine amateur, a painter by profession, an entrepreneur, a tennis lover… well, you get the point “an inch deep but a mile wide”. One thing that has always been present is my love and admiration for nature.

My mom raised us that way. We would go camping, we would learn the names of flowers, butterflies, we would (well, she would) sneak in unknown peoples gardens and steal fruit or a flower, she would smuggle an olive tree from Israel and plant it in her backyard, she would teach us how to search for free range chicken eggs, we would unearth yucca roots for breakfast in the weekends, we would play in our treehouse… you can say my mom was a disguised flower child, and we were all little Tarzan wannabes.

After a brief but successful career as a fine artist I started an advertising agency with a partner and as of today we are among the top 5 of the country, remember this is a small country, so I am not a millionaire but I do well enough to afford my photography equipment and an occasional photo trip. After 10-12 hours a day in the office it became really hard for me to lock my self in the studio and paint, so I chose photography. It presented an opportunity to be outside and close to nature and at the same time have an artistic and creative output. – Yes but why birds? – is the question everyone keeps asking me. I can’t really tell. I guess is one of those things you secretly dreamed about but then thought it was just too far fetched to really happen. But here I am, reading about birds, learning their scientific names, their behavior patterns, watching them, stalking them with my lens and enjoying it like nothing before.

Birds are such a big part of our history. They are the modern day dinosaurs and most of them can fly.. and that is just amazing. They inhabit every kind of habitat, they are so different from each other but at the same time they are all unmistakably “birds”. Their feathers are perfectly designed, their beaks have evolved depending on their food source, their size goes from a few centimeters to a few meters… they are marvelous creatures and honestly I can’t get enough of them. I think a lot about birds. More than my business partner and clients should know about. I think about the best time or place to observe them and sometimes I dream about to discovering any missing link or a deep secret they might be hiding… Well, there is no specific answer to the “why birds?” question, just a very hard to explain obsession that has taken me to far away places, that gets me to camp in very remote locations and offers a whole world to discover. Try birding some time, you just might surprise your self.

Why do we love owls so much?

February 13, 2012
Birds, nature, photography, travel, Wildlife
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I don’t know about you, but most birders or bird photographes have a thing for owls.. hey, most people have a weakness for owls. At least I know that I have a special love for owls. They are both cute and gruesome, mysterious and yet spread all over the world. They are agressive when defending their turf yet tender with their own. Maybe is the fact that most species are nocturnal and we tend to be captivated by the dark and the creatures that habit in it. Maybe is the fact that they, like us and unlike most birds, have a forehead above two front-facing eyes or is it just the idea of a bird that can twist its neck almost 360 degrees. Whatever it is, I prefer owls over any bird, any animal or any other living thing… including most humans I know.

I have made it a point to photograph as many owls species as I can, but in 2011, I was only able to photograph 3: Burrowing owl (athene cunicularia), Snowy owl (bubo scandiacus) and the Hispaniolan 
endemic and beloved Ashy-faces owl (tyto glaucops). Next month I’ll be in Finland trying to expand that list hopefully with good shots, but like everything when wildlife is concerned, there are no guarantees. If you happen to know where an owl is nesting, breeding or hanging out, please drop me a line. If it’s in my power and financial possibilities, I’ll sure stop by and try to get the shot.

Egretting

February 11, 2012
Birds, nature, Wildlife
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When I first started photographing birds (not very long ago) I usually ignored common birds. Egrets, hispaniolan woodpeckers, palmchats, mockingbirds, etc.. Counting species was more important than a good photo; a very common sin among bird lovers. But one day while in Salinas, something changed. I somehow ended up paying more attention to the beauty of a very common bird and tried hopelessly to capture it. The responsible was none other than reddish egret, a very common bird in the Dominican Republic and one that most birders ignore.

The water was calmed, the sun was shining and everything seemed in-synch. The egret was walking on shallow water in the search for food. It’s reflection was magical and it immediately won me over. Since then I’ve always looked for a good shot no matter the bird, but to this day egrets, herons and other members of the ardeidae family have provided more beautiful images than most birds around. Hope you enjoy them!


The waxwing effect

February 7, 2012
birdwatching, nature, photography, travel, Wildlife
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When you think of Yellowstone, images of grizzly bears and packs of wolves immediately come to mind. Or maybe just long and wide landscapes, beautiful geysers, snow covered peaks and swirling steaming rivers. That is what defines Yellowstone, no doubt. And that is what my first 5 days in the park where like. In order for the rest of this post to make sense I must before state that I am a sucker for birds. I rather observe a house sparrow than a gray wolf any day of the week. I rather track an eagle than a bear. Birds are magical creatures; their colors, feathers, their reptilian ancestors, their flying skills… few things in life give more joy than watching birds. But while in Yellowstone I had very little expectations for birdwatching since in winter most birds migrate and the few that stay are very hard to photograph satisfyingly in the area that I was about to explore.

The first day of my trip I asked Juan if he had ever photographed or at least seen waxwings on Yellowstone. – Not once in 10 years – he said. I decided not to let that get me down and enjoy the wonderful mammals that roam in the park, after all it is called “the Serengeti” of North America.  During those five days I was able to take great shots of the American Dipper (cinclus mexicanus), the common goldeneye (bucephala clangula), townsed solitaire (Myadestes townsendi) and some very poor shots of a bunch gray-crowned rosy finches (Leucosticte tephrocotis) and the golden eagle (aquila chrysaetos),. I was happy to have some birds in my CF card. I was really happy.

The days went by very fast. We drove from Gardiner to Cooke City, passing by Lamar Valley over and over again in the search of wildlife. We drove to Jardine Rd. to take shots of the night sky, we had some local beers at the Blue Goose and ate a lot of fat-filled food. It was awesome!! But my last day on the park started very lousy. There were no animals in sight besides the regular bison resting over the snow. Not eve a coyote had showed its face. This was a very sad way to say goodbye to YNP. After a few hours we decided to hike along Boiling River in hopes to find river otters (which we did) and maybe some more rosy finches since I had not gotten one good shot in my last session.

We had just parked, my camera was still not mounted on the tripod and when a large bouquet of finches rapidly landed on a juniper tree… I rushed to get my camera ready, get everything out of the car, get the setting right, point to the tree and…. surprise!!!! They there were; an earful of over 3000 bohemian waxwings (bombycilla garrulus) instead of finches. I was euphoric!! Before I could press the shutter they all flew at the same time, in a gorgeous coordinated movement to a near-by tree. I grabbed my tripod, camera and climbed a small and steep hill to reach where they had just perched. I got the best shots of my life from these birds and without a doubt the most memorable experience in Yellowstone. We followed the birds for hours and gracefully they let us come close enough to watch them eat, bathe, rest, bicker with each other, get attacked by a Merlin (Falco columbarius), eat some more, drink from the river and finally fly away leaving us breathless and amazed. Cars driving by could not quite understand what we were looking at. There were no bears, no wolves, no elks nor any other mammal for that matter… We must’ve looked very crazy to the average Yellowstone visitor but I enjoyed myself immensely. Nothing in the prior six days provided such a wonderful and unique experience as watching those amazing birds do their thing. I love going back to that moment constantly, looking at those pictures and remembering exactly every shot and every setting I chose for each one. Every pose of every bird, every tree they chose and every berry they swallowed. I love remembering the astonishment I felt, the disbelief…. I might be a bit nuts, I went to Yellowstone and could not care less about the wolves but only about pretty little birds.


If you enjoyed these pics you can check out more at www.mariodavalos.org

Discovering Yellowstone

January 31, 2012
photography, Wildlife
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While is true that beauty lays on the eye of the beholder, there are places in the world that strongly defy that logic. Such a place is Yellowstone National Park.

Since I arrived home from that magical week, I am not the same any longer. I spend lots of time, usually while at work, daydreaming about going back. I find myself adding and multiplying numbers

in order to get a budget together only to find it improbable to be back before summer spoils the tranquility and white solitude of winter.

I planned this trip for a while and put a lot of time in choosing the right guide and the right time of year. I did not know what to expect: was a dense forest or a snowy desert?

But Yellowstone is none. Yellowstone is unique in so many ways it’s nearly impossible to grasp it’s beauty from any explanation, photographs or even video. You have to be there. Go.

I chose Juan Pons as a guide. Juan was an experience photographer with many years of experience touring in Yellowstone plus he was available on the right dates and he was also latino, which was not a must but it guaranteed a better chance of us getting along. This prove extremely important since we were riding together for 12-16 hours a day for 6 straight days. We agreed to meet at Bozeman and then drive to Gardiner, MT. We would wake up way before dawn and drive into YNP around 6:45am.

The landscape is breathtaking. Distances are great Everything is far and wide and the eye has to really work fast to digest the raw subtlety and transfer it quickly to the brain before going out for more.

It was a weird winter all over the States; not much snow, but the cold was still bitter, specially for a dominican guy. But one cannot talk about “Yellowstone weather”, since Gardiner has one weather, Lamar Valley another and Cooke City another. I shot over 7K photos in 6 days only to end up with 90 and the end of the editing process.

I will not try to explain my adventure in YNP; it will prove hopeless. But I will tell you this: IF you haven’t gone, Go. If you already been there, go in winter. If you already been there in winter, go again. If you have kids, be sure to take them. If you don’t have kids, take your nephews… also, don’t go in summer. Don’t treat this trip like a vacation, take it as a life lesson. Take pictures, even if you are not a photographer. Read up on the origins of the park and the peculiarities of its geology, its wildlife and its history. Don’t get caught up with wolves. They are definitely the celebrities of the park, but if you insist on it you’ll end up with a speckle of dark on your photograph and miss out on pronghorns, coyotes, foxes, bighorn sheep, bohemian waxwings, river otter, american dippers, goldeneyes and more.

If you enjoyed these pics you can check out more at www.mariodavalos.org

Sierra encantada

November 15, 2011
birdwatching, Hispaniola, photography, travel
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There are places that are simply magical. Places once you set foot they will be always with you. Energy oozes from the ground and it surrounds us and everything we are. Usually those places are very far away in another continent and time zone. We tend to think of them as exotic and mysterious destinies in a land far, far away. But this place my friends, the one I just got back from, is right here on our tiny island of la Hispaniola. It’s a patch of pristine forest, with great eco-diversity, breathtaking views and an enchanted spell casted on everyone who dares visit: La Sierra de Bahoruco. 
Bahoruco is an abrupt mountain chain on the southwest of the Dominican Republic just footsteps away from Haiti. It’s a steep system of rock formations than was probably once an island itself, hence most endemic birds and amphibians are found here and in cases, only here. I had visited places near by before, but never had I gone into the heart of this always-changing jungle. 
The expedition consisted of Dax; a fellow photographer, Ivan, a biologist from the Dominican Environmental Agency and myself, and it was planned to be a short but intense weekend trip focused mostly on Rabo de Gato and Zapotén. 
I do not intend to tell the whole story of the trip in a blog post, this is simply impossible. According to Alejo Carpentier  ”new worlds have to be lived in order to be explained” and I incline to agree. I will write three posts after this one, one for each day in the enchanted forest and each with a few photographs of the species observed and bits and pieces of the adventures we went trough to capture them. 

 

The perfect shot.

November 8, 2011
Birds, Hispaniola, nature, photography, Wildlife
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I know a guy who hunts. I mean he hunts lions, elephants, rhinos and polar bears… the real deal. He hunts, his sister hunts, his father hunts, his grandfather hunts… hunting is like a family Sunday for these guys, and they see nothing wrong with it. I have nothing against hunting, depending on the circumstances behind it that is. If hungry, I will hunt a tiger in order not to die, after all, humanity was built on the power to eat other animals, but hunting for sport, it just seems a bit arrogant to me…Hey! I won’t judge.
The other day I ran into this guy in a party and started a friendly conversation. He talked about hunting (of course) and I talked about conservation of animals. He told me about his expeditions and I talked about mine. It was then that I was stunned. Besides the difference between a lens and a gun, we were talking about the same thing: listening to the animal, tracking it, stalking it, attracting his attention when necessary and then taking the shot. I guess it’s all about possessing that which we chase: the perfect shot.


Last weekend I enjoyed what is probably my most difficult photographic hunt to date: the belted kingfisher. This fast devil might be common in other parts of the world, but in the Dominican Republic this evasive bird it’s very hard to spot and specially to photograph. It was about eight o’clock in the morning and I had just finished a routine walk at Humedales de Nigua. The 2km walk had produced decent images of the green heron, the mangrove cuckoo, the great egret, various sandpipers and the yellow warbler. I was ready to go home when in the distance I somehow spotted and curious shape perched in a dead tree. That beak was unmistakable: it was the kingfisher, my kingfisher. I searched my iPod for its call and hid the speaker below some driftwood, then hid myself behind some bushes and waited… waited. The bird appeared circling over my head and I felt a rapid rush of blood in my head. It was exhilarating! It perched in the perfect branch in front of me, probably ten to fifteen meters away and I took the shot. A rapid fire from my shutter captured this beauty in a few seconds. He flew away confused about the invisible sound that kept calling him. He came back over and over again. I moved fast from one bush to another. Following the bird with my eyes and ears, with my agile lens. He kept moving, flying in circles and then perching in the same branch… the end of this hunt was a series of pictures I feel very proud of, not only of the images themselves, but the adrenaline-filled chase that turned me into a predator without taking anybody’s life.

The mystery of the Sparrow

November 4, 2011
Birds, birdwatching, nature, photography, Wildlife
3 Comments


Ok, so the title sounds like a Bond movie and I feel the word “mystery” has never been so close to the word “ornithology” before, but still in the Dominican ornithology community, it rings true. The mystery is: how the roufous-collard sparrow got to the island of La Hispaniola. First let me state that I am neither an ornithologist nor a professional photographer, but I guy who loves birds and photography and likes to wonder around the mountains of the Cordillera Central. When I started birding and started talking to old timers, I found there are three big mysteries in the Dominican bird community:

1. The double-striped thick-knee (Burhinus bistriatus)

2. The Hispaniolan Crossbill (Loxia megaplaga)

3.The Roufous-collard Sparrow (Zonotrichia capensis)

But today we are sticking to the latter one. Among the very knowledgeable people on the subject I got to discuss it with José Pantaleón and Pedro Genaro, two amazing wildlife photographers specialized in Dominican endemic fauna.

Locally it is called “Cigüa de Constanza”, but technically it is not a “cigüa” but a sparrow as its English name indicates. Secondly it is not limited to Constanza, as it was first believed, but the real mystery is how this bird got here since it is not present neither in Cuba nor Puerto Rico nor Jamaica and it is certainly not endemic either. Its Latin name is Zonotrichia capensis.

Zonotrichia referring to the black stripes on its head and capensis, which apparently is mistakenly used since this term is use to name birds first seen in Cape Hope. The hypothesis is that in the first text written on the species it should have been “cayensis” from the French Guyana and a typo could be responsible for this. Still the real mystery has no real answer. This bird it’s only found on the mountains of the Cordillera Central above 900mts from sea level and has no other presence in the island nor similar avi-fauna ecosystems in the Caribbean. It is no likely that Europeans brought it since the bird lives in North and South America.

This beautiful sparrow is common in my Jarabacoa backyard. I have seen and photographed juvenile specimens only weeks old, I have seen couples jumping from branch to branch and mostly on the floor looking for food near my orange trees. I have no intention of solving this mystery but only to keep enjoying this delightful sparrow that has Dominican ornithologist scratching their heads.


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