swans Archives • Into the Light Adventures

Specular Highlight The specular highlight appears on shiny objects. It normally appears on a mirror-like surface. Its appearance is often found on the top of a rounded surface. The incident light hits the object and creates the specular highlight and the light is reflected off the object toward the viewers eye.

Also called catch lights in photography, Without catch lights, “light in the eye” viewers perceive the eye (and thus the bird) to be lifeless.

It takes patience and sunlight, but I like to try and photograph a bird with that touch of catch light on the eye. I think it brightens the eye, even though this Black Swan has such bright eyes even without the spec of light.

Specular Highlight

by Sandra J

They’re Our Biggest Waterfowl

By Sandra | April 8, 2021

They’re Our Biggest Waterfowl – Trumpeter Swans demand superlatives: they’re our biggest native waterfowl, stretching to 6 feet in length and weighing more than 25 pounds – almost twice as massive as a Tundra Swan.

Despite their size, this once-endangered, now recovering species is as elegant as any swan, with a graceful neck and snowy-white plumage. They breed on wetlands in remote Alaska, Canada, and the northwestern U.S., and winter on ice-free coastal and inland waters.

They almost appear to be smiling with that little touch of orange in the corner of their bill.

There is a swan behind this branch, my camera changed its focus on the mossy covered branch instead. But I find moss to be so artistic in its own way.

by Sandra J

The Beauty of Spring

By Sandra | April 6, 2021

The Beauty of Spring, I just love when the migrating birds start coming back. It was gorgeous weather all weekend and I did not take one photo or open my computer at all. Sometimes you just have to take a moment and enjoy the spring weather when it arrives.

Even though the grass is still brown, I know any day now the wild flowers will start to come up and I can see the buds on the trees now also. So today I went to the lake to see if the swans were still there and they were. There was still a little ice on the water but it will all be gone soon.

This beautiful duck is back as well. It is called the Hooded Merganser Duck, there are 4 types of Merganser’s. I saw this one and the Common Merganser. I will have more photos coming this week. These are so cool looking I think with their crown of feathers. This is a male and the females are just as pretty. The females look like they have mohawks.