Wildlife Watcher - January 2009

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Elephant Seal Cow, Ano Nuevo, California

Gray shapes snap into focus as elephant seals lounging on the sand. Gulls and blackbirds hop around the resting seals, adding action and color. Just as you frame an image of two cows arguing with pink mouths open and pups wriggling out of the way, you hear, “Sorry, but we have to move on.”

Welcome to group photography in a wildlife reserve, where state and Federal law can keep you farther away from your subjects than you’d like. Your guide must enforce that law, which is a safer idea anyway. She may not know about light and composition, and she’s obligated to move your group on to make room for the one behind you.

With all that in mind, I operate as a slash-and-burn photographer in a group situation. What’s that?

Shoot It Fast - Slash and Burn Photography
Practice your picture-taking process until you don’t need to think about it. Shooting sports is good training – you have to capture the action now, since competitors can’t redo it.

Think about lenses and other gear you’ll need for the subjects you expect. On a guided hike in a wildlife reserve, you’ll know there’ll be elephant seals or bison or snow geese, and you should know how close the guide will let you get. You’ll need to go from deciding on your subject to sizing up background and light to subject placement to tweaking exposure for depth of field and action to aiming and framing to taking and chimping it in ten seconds or less. That’s a lot – and you do it all subconsciously after awhile.

Courtesy Gets You The Shot
In groups, courtesy goes a long way. Other tour-ees will see you humping the 500mm lens and tripod over your shoulder, and start to pity you. Size up subjects and scene, then ask politely for space to set up and shoot.  Most of the time, they’ll make room for you. Guided groups of photographers tend to be more flexible – they know what it’s like, and they’re there to photograph.

Here’s another place where shooting sports shoulder-to-shoulder with other credentialed photographers is good training. Always check the other guy’s sight line to keep out of his shot. If you can’t find space for everybody’s favorite shot, look for something else where there’s room. You may get very different, sometimes better shots that way.

Nathan Rennie, Sea Otter Classic

Get Keepers From A Survey Trip
Treat a guided group tour as a survey trip. You’ll see behavior in light and backgrounds you can look for later. Even if you can’t go back to the same spot without a guide, there’ll usually be a nearby area you’re allowed to visit alone.

Elephant Seals and Gulls, Ano Nuevo, California

Elephant Seals at Ano Nuevo
California’s Ano Nuevo State Reserve is a well-known breeding ground for northern elephant seals. Hunted almost to extinction in the 1800s for their blubber oil, these large marine mammals were given protected status in Mexico and the U.S. in the 1920s. Today there are around 160,000 of them. Many come to Ano Nuevo every winter to mate, birth, and raise pups.

Because it’s a marine sanctuary, a guide must lead you at all times on Ano Nuevo’s beach trails. Guided tours also book up months in advance. Five months before the tour, my wildlife photography club bought two tickets per photographer to make room for tripods. Our group was 50% photographers, with a photo-friendly guide. We had only 10 to 15 minutes at every stop, since tours leave every 15 minutes. We also had to stay at least 25 feet away from elephant seals, couldn’t disturb any wildlife, and needed to be ready to move whenever the guide saw aggressive bulls headed our way. Two-ton bulls don’t stop for females, pups, or humans – they roll right over anything in their way. They can also shimmy across sand faster than you can run.

Choose Gear Without Feeling Like a Pack Animal
With those restrictions, I knew I’d need at least 500mm on an EOS 1D mk II for 18-foot long bulls. The 500mm is light enough to avoid chiropractic visits, yet powerful enough to pull in distant wildlife or fill your frame from 20 feet. That’s why I originally chose it over a 600mm.

1.4X and 2X teleconverters cost less and consume less space than another lens. They also get me close enough for portraits and faces. Big lens and camera mount on a Gitzo 1325 carbon tripod with Wimberley Sidekick head for one-finger aiming.

I also carried a 70-200mm zoom on a backup EOS 20D camera, and a lightweight Leica M8 with 25mm, 35mm, and 50mm lenses for background landscape shots. The 500mm f/4L IS and EOS 1D mk II combination is almost waterproof, so I didn’t worry about the rainy weather forecast. Clouds would give me even light with less contrast (good news), but fewer shadows to model features (bad news).

Shorter lenses are handy for sudden pop-up action. When I was shooting at an egret rookery once, a ranger walked over holding a nestling that had fallen out of its nest. A backup camera with a short zoom got me the shot. The ranger was gone before other shooters could change lenses.

Naturalist Guide Susan McConnell, Ano Nuevo, California

Elephant Seal Photography - It's About The Behavior, Stupid

But I was at Ano Nuevo for the main event - individual seal behavior, and seal herd interactions. Our first couple stops had clear long-range views of the beach below Point Ano Nuevo and the abandoned lighthouse on Ano Nuevo Island.

Elephant Seals and Lighthouse Island, Ano Nuevo

We also stopped at what the guide called Loser’s Beach, where a few defeated males go when they lose battles for females. In this spot uphill from the main breeding area, a couple smaller bulls lay on the sand. There was also an apparently abandoned pup, and a female who seemed to be stuck in the bushes. Elephant seal cows are two-thirds the size of bulls, and look like big harbor seals. We were able to close in for tighter head shots, but the bulls weren’t moving and light was poor, so we moved on.

The main view showed us most of the herd from a 15-foot dune. Action took place all over the beach, with the guide pointing out attempted mating and suggesting we look for the alpha male. I watched for movement, and for open mouths as a pink contrast to gray bodies on tan sand.

Those brown and gray mounds are seals!

Cows flippered sand over themselves to keep cool, suckled young, or just lay there to rest. One bull attempted to mate with a cow who wasn’t having any, starting by putting his flipper on her and climbing on top of her. He gave up after she grunted at him continuously for a few minutes. Our guide told us to look for gulls clumping near a female elephant seal – gulls consider a placenta a delicacy, so they watch birthing cows closely. We were unlucky – there were no births or battling bulls for our tour.

Elephant Seal bull attempting to mate, Ano Nuevo

Crows, gulls, and blackbirds strutted through the seal herd like they owned the place. They were careful not to get too close, even with airborne escape as an option.

I saw a disagreement unfold between two cows. As fights go, it was mild – lots of open-mouthed posturing and grunting as pups looked on. Finally the instigator backed down, and went to fight with someone else.

Elephant Seal Cow Fight, Ano Nuevo

The overcast and intermittent rain made it a cool day. The herd was pretty low-key with some action. According to our guide, cows and bulls do nothing at all on a warm sunny day. It's just too hot to move when you weigh a ton or two.

After about 20 minutes of watching and photographing, it was time to move on. The guide suggested we explore Cove Beach next door after the tour. So a couple of us walked down below the visitor center.

There were more surfers than seals, but we were able to actually get within 25 feet of both. A bull obliged by slowly wriggling up the beach, throwing sand as he went.

Elephant seal bull, Cove Beach, Ano Nuevo

Be Ready for Unusual Subjects - They'll Be There

But the big attraction was a brown pelican in breeding plumage, with yellow head, orange bill and silver body. He was wading all by himself, mostly waddling but swimming when a wave washed him onshore. It looked like he was lost. Brown pelicans usually winter in southern California or Baja, so this guy wasn’t where he was supposed to be. He stretched his wings and kept a wary eye on me as I photographed him in occasional shafts of sunlight. The low-angle winter light made his feathers glow, and I kept shooting as long as it lasted. After awhile he flew further down the beach, and I walked back to the parking lot to meet friends.

Brown Pelican eating, Cove Beach

In the end, the best shots of the day had come from a bird subject I didn’t expect to see. From the tour’s restricted locations, I still got some good pair and small group pictures by watching for movement and open mouths, then working quickly.

The guide helped by stopping at viewpoints with the best light. She also gave us times to return for the best chance at bull fights, mating, birthing and female migration. And her Cove Beach suggestion got me shots I would have missed.

There’s no substitute for a native guide.

On The Website - Tracking the Anasazi

Tips for photography in an ancient power spot

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