Patricia Gonzalez is an NYBG Visitor Services Attendant and avid wildlife photographer.
This Red-tailed Hawk was found lurking in the Wetlands during my lunch break on April 26 of this year. I noticed him while walking along the Wetlands trail—he was staring intently at some nearby squirrels. A number of visitors caught sight of him as well and we all began snapping away with our cameras.
At that point I had to leave him to get back to my post; whether or not he made one of those squirrels his snack, I don’t know.
Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) – Photo by Patricia Gonzalez
Patricia Gonzalez is an NYBG Visitor Services Attendant and avid wildlife photographer.
In the 21st century, a smartphone is no longer just a convenient thing to have on hand if you need to make a call away from home. It is an invaluable tool for the wildlife photographer. I never leave home without it!
Read on for three downloadable apps that I use during my treks at The New York Botanical Garden to address three of the primary concerns of every wildlife and nature photographer.
Sunrise
We shutterbugs are chasers of light. Knowing the exact time the sun comes up and goes down is crucial if I want to get some early morning sky shots before I go in search of wildlife or some late afternoon images when the forest is a beautiful golden brown color. For this I use the full version of Sundroid.
Patricia Gonzalez is an NYBG Visitor Services Attendant and avid wildlife photographer.
This year marks the eighth year that I’ll be photographing wildlife here at the New York Botanical Garden. I first began visiting the Garden grounds in 2008. I was so impressed with all the different types of wildlife that I soon became a Member. In 2012, I signed on as a Volunteer Greeter with Visitor Services. Later that same year, I was asked to join them as staff. The rest, as they say, is history.
During all this time, I’ve never stopped shooting. I bring my camera to work every day and try to do some shooting before and after my shift. I also visit the Garden on my days off to get in some extra daylight. Naturally, I have an advantage working at the Garden as I can get in before we open to the public. This leaves entire swaths of the Garden all to myself. Through the years, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting some amazing members of the animal kingdom. Here are a few of them.
Patricia Gonzalez is an NYBG Visitor Services Attendant and avid wildlife photographer.
The Great-horned Owl nest of 2009
I have had the pleasure of taking thousands of photos of wildlife at The New York Botanical Garden since my first treks here in 2008. Among the birds of prey that I enjoy photographing are the Great-horned Owls. My first encounter with these winged hunters was back in March of 2009.
It was a little after 4:00 p.m. as I was walking down Azalea Way that I heard hooting coming from the Forest. I looked through the trees only to be surprised by the outline of an owl. Back then, I was shooting with a small point-and-shoot that had nowhere near the zoom range of my current camera. But it didn’t matter. What was important was that I got to see an amazing member of the animal kingdom for the first time, and I got a photo!
Later that month I spotted the female owl and one of her two hatchlings in the nest, which was located in a snag overlooking a trail near the edge of the Forest. I’ll never forget the day when a fluffy little head popped up and looked right into my camera. It’s still one of my all-time favorite photographs.
I shot this on Tuesday, October 30th. As my shift ended early, I decided to take advantage of the daylight and photograph the continuing explosion of fall colors. The Forest is especially wonderful this time of year. Reds, yellows, oranges, and great shades of violet cover its 50 acres. According to the Garden’s fall foliage tracker, we are now about halfway to peak color. And it can only get better. I didn’t edit this photo in the least—mother nature provided excellent colors!
Although I have been photographing wildlife at The New York Botanical Garden since 2008, March 17th, 2012 was my last sighting of a Great-horned Owl. Since that time, during my frequent forays into the Thain Family Forest I could clearly hear them hooting, but have had zero luck in spotting them. But then this April, they made their reappearance when it became clear that one of the female owls had hatched two owlets.
It was a lovely Tuesday morning with cloudless blue skies. I had about an hour and a half before my shift at the NYBG began, so I decided to try my luck spotting a young Red-tailed Hawk that I’d been photographing for weeks. I believe that this is one of the three hawks born earlier this year at the Fordham University nest. His mom is Rose, who I’ve been photographing since 2008. After walking the forest for about an hour, I exited near the Wetlands Trail, where I soon saw my friend. He tried his darnedest to take on a squirrel inside the twisted snag, which resulted in a hilarious game of hawk and mouse with the squirrel living to eat peanuts another day.
I also had an opportunity to shoot a little video of the pair in action, which you can see here.
It was a little after noon on February 26 of 2009 that I enjoyed one of the most amazing experiences of my life. By that time, I had already been shooting photographs at The New York Botanical Garden for a year, and it seemed like every creature living in the Garden had cooperated with my camera except for one species: the Red-tailed Hawks which often hunt throughout the NYBG. I had been able to get a few shots, but always from a distance and far overhead.
Other times, I couldn’t ready my camera fast enough and my subject matter would disappear into the sky.
Back in February of this year, I related my tale of Rose, the red-tailed hawk who shares a nest on the nearby Fordham University campus with Vince, her mate. Since then, the hawks have extended their family. In May, four chicks (a record for this pair and likely any other Bronx hawks) came out to the world. I knew that it was only a matter of time before these youngsters would pay The New York Botanical Garden a visit. I hoped to be lucky enough to see these raptors close up, and I recently got my wish.
It was 9:40 a.m. on a chilly October morning and I had just passed the Garden’s reflecting pool. I wanted to do some shooting of the Conservatory grounds. That’s when I noticed a hawk darting overhead, landing on the lawn by the first tram stop on Garden Way.
The tram crew hadn’t noticed it at first. The hawk was looking down at something. After watching Jr. (one of this hawk’s siblings from 2010’s brood) for so many months this past winter, I already knew what was going to happen next, so I tip-toed ahead, ducking behind one of the two nearby trees and readying my camera. I set it to shoot eight images in one burst and began firing away. It was windy and the ray of sunlight shining through the trees directly onto my new friend kept changing, making getting clear shots interesting to say the least. But I got photos of the newest member of Rose’s dynasty regardless.
Today’s topic is the one thing that I think every New York City wildlife photographer should consider investing in. With this, not only will you have access to the grounds and great attractions the Garden offers year round, but you’ll also be able to enter the Garden before the public does. What is it? It’s an Annual Supporting Membership.
As a Supporting Member, not only will you get a neat membership card for yourself and one other person (which in turn, gets you into the Conservatory, Rock Garden, Everett Children‘s Adventure Garden, and more) both of you will get what I like to call “the golden ticket:” An early-morning grounds pass which grants you access to the Garden’s stunningly beautiful 250-acres before they open to the public at 10:00 a.m. With this pass, you can arrive as early as 6:00 a.m. and shoot till your heart’s content.
An annual supporting membership is $250. Yes, that might seem a bit steep, especially in today’s economy, but you can cut the cost in half if you join with another person. I convinced my best friend who is also an amateur photographer to join with me, which brings the cost down to $125 each. Although the membership is in my name, we both got individual membership cards and early morning grounds passes.
I look at it this way; the money is going to keep a place that I love operating. Just the opportunity to photograph hawks, owls, and other wildlife with only a few folks around 52-weeks a year is enough to get me to re-up every year. My last four close-up encounters happened before 7:30 a.m.!
You just show your pass to the security guard at either entrance and you’re in. During one of my more recent adventures, I came across two young great-horned owls and one of their parents in the native forest around 6:45 a.m. I was able to get some great shots and video.
If you just want to go solo and don’t care about the pass, then join as an individual at $75. You can check out all the different levels of membership here.
If you still need convincing, then go to my photo site and see for yourself. Look into the eyes of the owls, hawks and other wildlife and imagine yourself in the Native Forest, camera in hand, the smell of damp earth in the air and the sounds of the natural world around you. It doesn’t get any better than this.
