Yellow-headed Blackbird, Star Lake, Ottertail County, Minnesota
The last kayak trip of our little Minnesota adventure had some wonderful surprising moments. We wanted to explore a new body of water outside of the state park and paddled Star Lake in Ottertail County, one of the larger lakes around. But size doesn’t matter, the water was crystal clear as at any smaller lake we paddled before. First it was not really exciting because homes and cabins along the lake shore didn’t leave much space for natural habitats. It wasn’t until we went deep into a big field of reeds and cattails on the other side of the bay when the fun of bird watching started. The call of a male Yellow-headed Blackbird is slightly different than the omnipresent Red-winged Blackbird (they were of course present as well) and before we even reached the reeds, we knew they were in there somewhere.
Today’s photo is the result of patience and quite a few paddle maneuvers for a view without too much obstruction by the reeds. It has been a long time that I had this beautiful bird in front of the lens and I was thrilled to see and finally photograph them again.
Nikon Z6 III, Nikon NIKKOR Z 600 f/6.3 VR S, @ 600 mm, 1/1250 s, f/6.3, ISO 400, image slightly cropped