Autumn is by far the most wonderful time of the year for a landscape and wildlife photographer. The animals are active, the scenery is beautiful and the bugs are gone!!!

I had the pleasure the last two weeks to do some wildfowl shooting at Chenango Valley State Park. I was also able to borrow the new Nikon 200-500 lens for a day to see if it could measure up to the Tamron and Sigma alternatives. I was able to use a Sigma a while back but I was not overly impressed with it. My friend Ron Meeker has the Tammy and he does very well with it, so I was interested to see if Nikon could compete in this arena. One day is really not enough to make an informed opinion on a lens like this, but I was impressed enough to want to take a second look! The images below were taken at Lily Lake, the small lake behind the main lake at CVSP. The lake is small enough that you can cover a good portion of water from one vantage point. And the big advantage is that the birds are used to seeing walkers and hikers all summer so they are a bit less skittish than wild birds. All in all the weather was beautiful, the birds were cooperative, and I even got a couple keepers! I can't think of a better way to spend a day of my life!!! Click on images to enlarge.