NATURE CLICKS #268 - RUSTY BLACKBIRD

Female Rusty Blackbird

Everybody here in the Midwest is familiar with the Red-winged Blackbird. They are found almost everywhere along roadsides or bodies of water. The arrival of the first Red-winged Blackbirds is always a sure sign that winter comes to an end soon. This year I saw my first one March 13th. Not so known is the Rusty Blackbird. They come through here on their way to Canada, where they have their breeding grounds.

I read that this blackbird had a population decline of over 85% since 1966 (source: iBirdPro app). One reason more to be happy about seeing them again last weekend in the Green Island Wetlands. Most of the time I have seen them foraging in very shallow water or in the mud along shore.

Male Rusty Blackbird

NATURE CLICKS #267 - TURKEY VULTURE

Nikon D300s, Sigma 50-500mm / f4.5-6.3 APO DG HS         

I came across this Turkey Vulture a couple days ago while driving down the winding road to Finley’s Landing at the Mississippi River. The bird stood on a boulder beside a bridge that crosses the creek, which carved this little side valley of the big river. I’m glad I had the camera on the passenger seat, ready to shoot. The vulture gave me about twenty seconds to stop the car, lower the window, and finally make a few clicks. It is very rare to see a vulture beside the road in a decent setting. Mostly they feed on some roadkill and that is not always pretty. I don’t know what this one was after but I’m happy the bird gave me the chance to get real close before it took off.

The Turkey Vultures migrate south during the winter but we have seen the first ones back here already in late March. They are some of the most elegant flyers and have a very sophisticated immune system that protects them from disease associated with decaying animals.

WHERE DO YOU WANT TO HEAD WITH YOUR WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHY?

Lesser Yellowleg

There are several reasons why I chose this particular photo to tell a little part of the probably long story about spring migration of the Lesser Yellowleg. First, I like the gesture of the bird, looking at the sky for a Bald Eagle that soared above our heads. Second, it is the concept of using negative space, the space that surrounds the bird and that emphasizes the main subject. And third, it is very difficult to find a spot in the Green Island Wetlands that is not cluttered with stumps of old reeds or just mud hills that stick out of the shallow water. It would have been easy to clone out the reed stumps in the upper right corner of the photo, but I think it gives the image a little more dimension.

If you would ask me, where would you like to head with your wildlife photography, I would say, I really like the combination of light and story telling, and I enjoy a claim for artistic expression in a photo. With other words, I don’t care so much for the last detail in an eyeball of a critter, although sharpness is still important, but gesture will play hopefully a bigger role in my future images. I may answer this different sometime in the future, but as of now, this is it, and that’s why I like today’s image…

FIRST OF THE YEAR

Eastern Phoebe

Before I continue with another migrating shorebird that made a stop in the Green Island Wetlands last weekend, I like to report my first of the year Eastern Phoebe. No, it wasn’t here in our woods but thirty miles south in Bellevue State Park. The landscape is very similar to ours, steep and rocky slopes with deciduous forest. I looked in my archives and found out that the arrival of the Eastern Phoebe has been always around the first week in April during the last few years. This small flycatcher is fun to watch when they catch prey in mid-air. It forages from atop tree branches or other perches. A sure sign of spring… ;-)

NATURE CLICKS #266 - PECTORAL SANDPIPER

Well, I spent another full afternoon behind the camera along the Mississippi River. I liked some of the results from yesterday but there is always room for improvement. Identifying sandpipers is really not an easy task and any time I post a picture of a sandpiper species I would like to add a question mark. Most of them we see only during migration and this makes it difficult to have it spot-on every time. So if you are a birder that really knows about shorebirds and you disagree with my identification, please don’t hesitate to bring me back on the right track.

Nikon D300s, Sigma 50-500mm / f4.5-6.3 APO DG HSM

I saw several of the Pectoral Sandpipers in the Green Island Wetlands yesterday already but there were a lot more today and they were closer too. They have a really long journey to their breeding grounds. The Pectoral Sandpiper spends the winter in South America and breeds on arctic tundra from western Alaska across extreme north Canada. (source: iBirdPro app and NG Complete Birds of North America)

I talked about using “peak of action” in wildlife photography lately. The first image is a good example how it worked. Something took the bird’s attention for a brief moment, maybe there was a predator in the sky, and most of them interrupted their feeding frenzy and stopped for a few seconds. The shutter of the D300s was rattling… :-)

NATURE CLICKS #265 - WILSON'S SNIPE

Nikon D300s, Sigma 50-500mm / f4.5-6.3 APO DG HSM

It was a great day for bird watching. A little windy at times but warm and pleasant. Lots of new arrivals in the Green Island Wetlands. Among them where several Wilson’s Snipes. They are on their way to Canada and the northern U.S., where they will breed this summer. I found the birds at the end of the day after a five hour visit in the preserve. They probed with their long bill in the mud with high frequency. The diet of a Wilson’s Snipe includes mostly larval insects, earthworms, and mollusks.

I shot other birds earlier in the afternoon but nothing can beat the quality of the light during the last two hours before sunset. The Wilson’s Snipe isn’t a first sighting for me. I found them before during the first week in April in 2013, but last year I missed them. 

More to come, so please stay tuned...

Face to face

I hope nobody wants to talk photography today… ;-) This heavily cropped photo is just here to show you the little owlet, that I had the pleasure to see face to face this week for the first time. We had a couple windy days and most of the time the young Great Horned Owl stays low in the nest and only the upper part of its head is visible. It looks like the parents feed it well, at least they are not much at the nest. I have seen the mother flying over into the reeds along the river a couple times. With other words, their food source is really not far from the nest.

NATURE CLICKS #264 - HORNED LARK

It wasn’t an easy task to make the photos I show you today. There was a reason why I never was able to make any decent shots of the Horned Lark here in Iowa before. They live and breed in the open country, where no tree or bush can hide a desperate photographer ;-) I have seen them in a field just outside of the Green Island Wetlands many times before but never came close enough to make the image work. Yesterday evening I found a pair of Horned Larks foraging along one of the levees that separate the ponds in the wetlands. I maneuvered the car, which as you know serves as my mobile blind, several times in position. Many birds seem to accept the presence of a car quite often, while opening the door and getting out of it, may spook them away immediately. The two larks didn’t show much interest in me this time, but getting close was only one problem I had to overcome.

All images: Nikon D300s, Sigma 50-500mm / f4.5-6.3 APO DG HSM

Most wildlife photographers are familiar (or at least should be) with using the peak of action, the short moment between movements, for the shot. It has been quite often best described with a bouncing basketball. The brief moment when the ball reaches its highest point and the speed is zero. This is the moment when you have your chance to make a sharp shot, no matter what your shutter speed is. The only way to make this work for your photography is trying to predict this moment a tad before and then use the ability of the camera to shoot several frames per second (the Nikon D300s does 6 fps). The Horned Lark gave me a hard time. Both were foraging, head down, and with high speed and intensity. Yes, there was peak of action but it occurred very irregular. Sometime the birds didn’t stop for more than ten seconds. Other times I thought I nailed it, but the lark had their eyes closed. Well, as you can imagine I had my good share of misses yesterday evening…

The good thing was that the light got better with every minute while working with the birds. You may ask why some of the grass and background looks black. The DNR (for my German friends: Department of Natural Resources, similar to Naturschutzbehörde) had a controlled burning in the area the week before. This is a way to keep prairie and marsh land in good condition. Wild fires have always played an important role for the health of these ecosystems and landscapes.

NATURE CLICKS #263 - RING-NECKED PHEASANT

I went out today to find all kind of birds near or in the water of the Mississippi and other wetlands. And there were lots of them today. However, my most surprising encounter today was this Ring-necked Pheasant. I found the bird in full courtship display on a piece of marshland at the Mississippi near Sabula, Iowa. His behavior indicated that he was either posing for a female or tried to impress another competitor. Although, I never saw another bird between the reeds and brushes along the river shore.

This wasn’t a first sighting for me but it was the first time that I was able to shoot a number of pictures of a pheasant. The Ring-necked Pheasant is a native to Asia and was introduced as a game bird in California in 1857 (source: iBird Pro app). I’m very happy that I finally can add this species to the BIRD GALLERY - NORTH AMERICA. Check it out if you like.

HIGH UP IN THE TREES (TWO STORIES)

After an overall gray day the sun came out this evening for a brief moment. Luckily this happened when I checked the nest of the Great Horned Owl again today. Not much new to report. I saw the upper part of the head of one little owlet, but haven’t seen the face yet. My photography friend Linda from Dubuque sent me an email today, basically confirming the same observations. It looks like we have one young owl in the nest again, the same as during the last couple years. But what do we know? Since we can’t peek into the nest we may still have a surprise waiting for us...

Male Wood Duck

The second image was shot this morning during some light rain from my office window and has not much to do with decent photography. I made it mainly more for my own documentary. Every spring, and only in spring, we see and hear migrating Wood Ducks resting in the oak and hickory trees that surround us here on the bluffs above the Little Maquoketa River Valley. There was actually a female duck sitting not far from this male, but as you can see by the blurry parts in the foreground, lots of branches obstructed a clear view. The bird is further away as it seems. I have cropped the picture a little bit. Nothing for the purists among you today, but since my blog has always been about both, photography and nature, I still like to share today’s observations with you...

GOING FOR THE COLORS

Nikon D300s, Sigma 50-500mm / f4.5-6.3 APO DG HSM, Nikon SB600 speed light

I couldn’t resist to hit the shutter release button yesterday when we had the new snow on the ground and this female Northern Flicker landed on the tree trunk not far from me. Not just because of the additional light by the reflection of the snow, but also for the wonderful colors the bird showed. Their breeding time is between April and July, depending on location, and they might be in courtship by now. That is usually the time when the birds look at their best. For curiosity I looked in my archive and yes, in March the colors look much brighter than during any other time in the winter. Here in Eastern Iowa we see the yellow-shafted race of the Northern Flicker, while in the western part of North America the red-shafted is more common. Populations overlap and hybrids are not uncommon in different parts of the country. I hope you enjoy!

WINTER IS BACK!

Male Dark-eyed Junco

…and with it several dozen birds I thought had moved further north already. A fresh layer of snow, about 2 -3 inches, covered everything up last night and made our first Schneeglöckchen (snow bells) disappear again. :-(

During the last eleven winters I lived here in Iowa we learned that winter is not over as long we see the Dark-eyed Juncos. Here in Eastern Iowa we see the slate-colored form of this sparrow during the cold season. Their breeding grounds are up in Canada and usually they take off as soon the days get warmer. Well, today there were lots of them below our feeders and in the trees around, and that means nothing but winter is not over yet… ;-)

THE GESTURE MAKES THE DIFFERENCE

I remember clearly when I started getting more serious with wildlife photography about four, five years ago. I called it success if I found a particular critter and made a few clicks, no matter how far the animal was away. The mission was accomplished if the photo was sharp, or at least kinda sharp… ;-) Some time and many shots later this wasn’t enough anymore and it became my goal to fill the frame without cropping the photo. That still doesn’t always happen but it is something I try to work on all the time while out in the field. I’m not an eyeball photographer, I’m more interested in an environmental portrait of the critter, but getting physically close is important for both ways of shooting. 

So what’s the next step in order to improve? For me, it is going after a particular gesture that can make the difference between just showing the beauty of an animal and having a story telling aspect in the photo, maybe about its behavior. The good thing is, this leaves room for improvement forever… :-

All images: Nikon D300s, Sigma 50-500mm / f4.5-6.3 APO DG HSM

Let’s look at the two photos of Sandhill Cranes. Both show the birds in their natural environment, the fields that are part of the wetlands, and that are soaked with water from the snow melt. I like the second picture because of it’s warm light, just a little bit before sunset. It shows the elegance of the crane as it walks and looks out for food. However, the first photo is my favorite. The turn of the head is the gesture I was after. It tells the story about the crane standing on guard for any danger that may appear, while its mate was feeding. Most of the photos from that evening show both cranes feeding or walking, but it was that brief moment that made the difference for me.

NATURE CLICKS #262 - TIGER SALAMANDER

Today’s photos were made at Cardinal Marsh, a wetland with several ponds, about 12 miles west of Decorah, Iowa. Joan and I have been there last summer for a short exploration and I wanted to come back this spring, hoping to see some migrating birds there. Well, the birds didn’t fulfill my expectations this time. I saw lots of Canada Geese, Mallards, and some Ring-necked Ducks, but since I can find them here at the Mississippi River as well, it wasn’t necessarily worth a two hour drive… ;-) Finally, when I entered the car to drive home, I heard the call of the Sandhill Cranes. During our first visit last year we got a wonderful dance performance by the cranes. Click HERE if you are interested and like to see what I’m talking about

All images: Nikon D300s, Sigma 50-500mm / f4.5-6.3 APO DG HSM, tripod, gimbal head

What got me absolutely excited this time was the discovery of a Tiger Salamander, walking just towards me on the grassy trail that surrounds the marsh land. Last year we found a dead one, so we knew that a salamander species calls these ponds home. The month of March is breeding time for the salamanders and seeing a Tiger Salamander is a great treat for me, not just because salamanders spent most of their time underground.

Let’s talk a little bit photography. Although the critter doesn’t move that fast, the Tiger Salamander didn’t give me too much time to make the shot before it disappeared in the grass. I was prepared for birds and had the camera with the long lens attached on tripod over my shoulder. I made a mistake and didn’t change lenses. The SIGMA 150 mm, f/2.8 would have been the best choice, but I played it safe, went just on the ground, and used the 50-500. The sun was bright and almost harsh, and so it felt a little bit like being on safari in South Africa during mid-day, without the hot temperatures… ;-)  I like the first photo and would have never shown you the second one, if it would have been a critter that we can photograph here every other day. The Tiger Salamander was a “first one” for me… :-)

 

NATURE CLICKS #261 - AMERICAN GOLDFINCH IN WINTER PLUMAGE

Nikon D300s, Sigma 50-500mm / f4.5-6.3 APO DG HSM, tripod, gimbal head

The American Goldfinch male is the prettiest of all finches we have here, especially in the summer. Their winter plumage is a little dull, but if the sunlight is bounced around by the snow on the ground, as we had it earlier this month, the colors can be very intense. The goldfinches stay in Iowa all year long and we see them here in large numbers coming to the bird feeders. Now, with the snow all gone and temperatures on the rise we will see soon the change to their breeding plumage again. It is the only member of its family that has a second and complete molt of its body feathers in the spring. All other species have just one molt each year in the fall. (source: iBird PRO app)