MISSISSIPPI RIVER STORIES 2017 #6 - WATER FOWL MIGRATION

Mississippi River, Mud Lake

I wrote that before, Mud Lake Park is never twice the same and it seems to be not difficult to come back with different impressions all the time. Today thousands of gulls had gathered on the last remains of ice and hundreds of ducks and mergansers were on the water. We saw Canada Geese, Buffleheads, Canvasbacks, Common Goldeneyes, Mallards, and dozens of Common Mergansers. Bird migration is in full swing since about two weeks already. The first Red-winged Blackbirds are here since a few days, a sure sign of spring. Birders on the IA-Bird Google Group reported about migrating Snow Geese and White-fronted Geese in five digit numbers. I have seen only a few thousand of them ten days ago at Cone Marsh in Iowa. Most of them left obviously in the morning, just before I arrived, but it was still quite impressive.

Weather was changing fast today and so was the scene on the river. Colder air moved in and as you can see in the background fog built up over the Mississippi very quickly. When the last shaft of sunlight hit the gulls on the ice I was ready to make the click for today’s photo. Usually I would clone away single birds in the sky that are the size of a little dot in my landscape pictures but today the ducks and geese flying over are part of the story in my image.

THREE GOOSE SPECIES

Green Island Wetlands, Greater White-fronted Geese, Snow Geese, Ross's Geese (far right)

A relatively warm Easter weekend lies behind us. I hope you had a great holiday, although the sun wasn’t out much here in eastern Iowa. On Saturday I introduced the Green Island Wetlands to part of the family. Well, the seven months old twins probably didn’t care too much about where we went…😉

My excitement went up when we saw a flock of Greater White-fronted Geese. My guess was about 400-500. They have still a long way to go before they reach their breeding grounds in northern Canada. With them were also about 50 Snow Geese, the largest number I have seen so far in the Green Island Wetlands. Looking closer at my pictures at home I found out that at least two blue-morph Ross’s Geese were among as well. This was a first sighting for me! If a more experienced birder than me has some other ideas about my identification efforts, I always appreciate your help and suggestions!

An overcast isn’t really helpful if you like to reveal the colors of birds in a photo but it definitely helped with this shot. This would have been a very high contrast scene if the sun was out, but with the overcast it allowed to show some detail in all of the different species, without tweaking much of the photo in post process.

THE "ORDINARY" BIRDS

Canada Geese, Green Island Wetlands, Iowa

How do we photograph the “ordinary” bird to make the picture special? I’m talking about the species that we can see every day at any time, if we just walk out the door and go to a location where they are always present. One way is making the image in extraordinary light. Well, that doesn’t always work out. Light comes and goes and most days it is just “average” and not great at all. The other way is to wait for a great gesture or pose, or to capture some action while the bird is moving.

Canada Geese are pretty much everywhere where a body of water is located here in the Midwest. After you have the first few hundred images of geese, sitting, standing, or swimming, on your hard drive it’s time to move on. Don’t take me wrong, Canada Geese are really a good subject to practice your shooting or to test and learn about your gear. The bird provides good contrast against almost any background even in nasty weather.

Last weekend in the Green Island Wetlands it was a little too early for seeing migrating birds, but coming home without any picture is not an option for me. I’m still in a phase of learning about the new SIGMA 150-600 lens and so I used every opportunity to shoot, even the “ordinary” birds…