May 18, 2014: North Sea Jack-up Rig

365 Project, Day 190

Here is my day 190 submission to my 365Project:

Each day we have been passing closer and closer to one offshore installation in this North Sea prospect where we are conducting our surveys. Close passes are, obviously, more intense periods for the ship's crew as they have to careful to have good control of the vessel and the 6 km long cables towing behind us; today was our closest pass to this jackup rig and I snapped this photo on our approach (see photos of our barovane passing within a couple hundred metres below).

Here are some more photos from today's day at sea: a misty moon (with posterization...definitely going to be shooting raw in future shots of celestial objects, see more about this at this post :), another dove in flight and our close pass to the rig. 

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Another moon photo :) ...with posterization, grr!

Wood Pigeon (Columba Palumbus)

Wood Pigeon (Columba Palumbus)

On the approach...

Yikes...now that's close!

May 17, 2014: Here Comes The Sun

365 Project, Day 189

Here is my day 189 submission to my 365Project:

Even thought I've taken so many sunrise photos I just can't stop! 

Gotta love those offshore sunrises...gorgeous!

Some more scenes from this morning's watch; photos of the moon, sunrise, a Barn Swallow (Hirundo rustica) in flight, a close pass by Breagh platform and a nearly mature Lesser Black-backed Gull (Larus fuscus, I think?):

Barn Swallow (Hirundo rustica)

A close pass by Breagh platform

Our barovane aka paravane (which keeps the seismic array spread) passing very close to Breagh platform

Possible 3rd year juvenile Lesser Black Backed Gull (Larus fuscus)

May 16, 2014: Feeling Moon-ey

365 Project, Day 188

Here is my day 188 submission to my 365Project:

Today I think I was able to capture a somewhat better image of the moon in the wee hours of the morning than I did on yesterday or the day before. I'll probably forget the settings by the time I try to do this again but that's the wonderful thing about digital, you have many opportunities to play with settings and capture the shot you're hoping for! 

The one thing I needed to figure out is why I'm getting posterization, or banding, in these images? It isn't so bad in my photo of the day but you'll see in this next photo that it's there...there are distinct bands of colour around the moon. According to this webpage the basic gist of it seems to be that these shots, which inclue areas of little detail, are posterized because they were shot in JPEG fine format and not Raw format. There is too little info spread too far apart in the JPEG image thus creating the blocky banding seen here. 

I have indeed heard in my path of learning photography that it's best to shoot in Raw, especially for post processing purposes including the cropping I've done here. I've gone through my phases of shooting in Raw and I understand there is much more information in a Raw format photos; the only thing is Raw files are just such big files and require even more time for post processing!  Oh well, looks like I'll be shooting Raw next time I want to photograph the moon and, although it'll take some more time to get the final result, there should be no posterization :)

Posterized moon

Breagh offshore platform

Sunrise over the barovane

Breagh sunrise

Breagh sunrise

Breagh sunrise

Breagh installation silhouetted at sunrise 

Lone Common Guillemot (Uria aalge) aka Common Murre 

Northern Gannet (Morus bassanus) taking off

Northern Gannet (Morus bassanus) 

Northern Gannet (Morus bassanus) 

Northern Gannet (Morus bassanus) 

May 15, 2014: Red Eyed Gaze

365 Project, Day 187

Here is my day 187 submission to my 365Project:



Birds, birds, birds...in the words of a guy a dated for a short while "Is that the blog you're writing about birds?". Birds? Birds? The blog is called Maiacetus which means Mother whale and states on the home page that the blog is about my life as a meandering whale nerd (not bird nerd!) Given the context of these recent blogposts though, you'd think that birds are what this blog is about... but it's supposed to be about my experiences working as a marine mammal observer and self proclaimed whale nerd. As you might have noticed there are not many whale photos in recent posts but that's only because it's the birds that have come close enough to actually be photographed recently! 

Although I have a 70-200 mm lens with a 2x teleconverter (which makes the lens a 140-400 mm, less bright, lens) it's still tough to take good photos of marine mammals when they are usually more than a few hundred metres away. For example, the dolphins observed yesterday were 1200 metres away and remained officially 'unidentified'; given that most of the ones we have identified have been white-beaked dolphins (Lagenorhynchus albirostris) it's very likely that's which species they were. The only thing is that for our job we're not supposed to guess so unless you can say you definitely saw certain distinguishing features then it's best to record them as 'unidentified'. You never want to assume anything when you're a marine mammal observer or in marine mammal research!

Anyways, the point is...I'm taking lots of bird photos and today's photo is another shot of a Collared Dove (Streptopelia decaocto). This bird was hanging around the ship and I liked the photo showing it's big red eye keeping a wary lookout on me as I snapped it's photo. Here are some more pics...of the moon, sunrise and, big surprise... BIRDS!

Cloudy full moon morning

Another gorgeous sunrise...I just can't stop taking these photos!

Offshore sunrise

Common Guillemots (Uria aalge) also known as the Common Murre 

Northern Fulmar (Fulmarus glacialis)

Collared Dove (Streptopelia decaocto)

Collared Dove (Streptopelia decaocto)

Collared Dove (Streptopelia decaocto)

Collared Dove (Streptopelia decaocto)

Collared Dove (Streptopelia decaocto)

Collared Dove (Streptopelia decaocto)

Collared Dove (Streptopelia decaocto)

Common Guillemots (Uria aalge) also known as the Common Murre 

May 14, 2014: Early Morning Full Moon

365 Project, Day 186

Here is my day 186 submission to my 365Project:

Working in the Northern Hemisphere means that, as we approach the summer solstice, the nights are getting shorter and the days longer. For this job I am working midnight to noon; I am conducting passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) watches from midnight until sunrise which is currently 4 am! It is actually a nice balance working 4 hours on PAM (so getting our reporting done while monitoring and listening on the hydrophone but not too much computer work!) and then conducting 8 hours of visual watch.

Tonight was the full moon and when I came to the bridge to start my watch the moon was amazing, so bright and full! It had been a while since I photographed the moon but, after a bit of experimentation, I managed to recall the settings and take a photo of the full moon before the moon disappeared :)  

And some more photos of the always present Northern Gannets (Morus bassanus) and a Lesser Black Backed Gull (Larus fuscus):

Northern Gannet (Morus bassanus)

Northern Gannet (Morus bassanus)

Lesser Black Backed Gull (Larus fuscus)