The Madrona Marsh Preserve is the last remaining vernal marsh in Los Angeles County. A vernal marsh is a depression flooded by runoff water from surrounding upland slopes. Vernal means spring, thus by connotation the marsh is fed by winter and spring storms. After the rainy season passes, evaporation, percolation and transpiration reduce the water depth by about one fourth inch per day. By the end of August, the wetland is dry and remains dry until the next rainy season. The preserve is a valuable habitat for birds, insects, reptiles and small mammals. During winter and spring seasons, one can observe the ducks and coots on the water, redwinged blackbirds in the tules, meadowlarks and shrikes in the uplands. Finches and warblers in the willows during the fall and spring, Hawks in the the eucalyptus trees in fall and winter. A variety of insects like dragonflies, butterflies, grasshoppers as well as Pacific tree frogs in the spring and summer seasons. ( http://www.friendsofmadronamarsh.com/ ) In this shoot the lighting condition were horrible, to say the least – there was no light. Therefore, I had to get creative with my Post-Processing. If not, I would have discarded all the photos. I used the Nikon D300 and the AF-S Nikon 70-300 VR.