MIGRATING DUCKS

Northern Pintail / Mallard / American Coot -- Mississippi River, Deere Marsh, Iowa -------

Our area is kinda ‘fly-over-country’ for some of the ducks I show you today. Usually they spend the summer north of Iowa. The Mississippi River is an important flyway for their long travel.

It isn’t the first time that all three species used the pond at the Deere Marsh north of Dubuque, Iowa for food supply and rest during migration in spring. The Northern Pintail is easy to identify, even if someone is not so familiar with their color or pattern in the plumage. The long tail, much longer than on other ducks, tells the story, even if they have the head under water like the one in this image.

Gadwall

I watched several pairs of Gadwalls swimming and feeding by submerging the head in the muddy water. Part of the pond had a thin layer of ice but the Gadwalls had no problem finding food.

Ring-necked Duck

The Ring-necked Duck is a diving duck and feeds mainly on aquatic plants and seeds but also snaps at insects on the water surface. Their chestnut neck ring is often hard to see from further away but the white ring on their bill is a prominent field mark and makes identification relatively easy.

I used my car as a blind to get as close as possible to the ducks. At my slow arrival they all swam away from the shore but after a few minutes they came back within the range of the lens. Not as close as I would have liked and so I have cropped the photos a little.

NATURE CLICKS #360 - WILSON’S SNIPE, EARLY APPEARANCE

Mississippi River, Green Island Wetlands, Iowa -------

It was a great day for bird watching and in particular the migrating waterfowl along the Mississippi River. On my way south my first stop was at the John Deere Marsh in Dubuque. On the pond north of the little parking lot I saw a couple Northern Pintails, several Gadwalls, Ring-necked Ducks, and lots of Mallards, American Coots, and Canada Geese. I may post a couple pictures from this location tomorrow.

My excitement grew when I arrived in the Green Island Wetlands and found dozens of Northern Shovelers and a pair of Hooded Mergansers beside the other “regulars”, like Canada Geese, Mallards, American Coots, and Killdeer.

As I was ready to turn around and head back home I suddenly discovered four Wilson’s Snipes in the pond across the gravel road from the DNR facility. They were probing the mud with their very long bill in search for food. This was the earliest I have ever seen this bird in the Green Island Wetlands. All older photos in my archive were made during the month of April.

I admit both images are a little soft due to distance and the fading light. When the snipes have the bill in the water or mud the movement of their heads hardly ever stops. There was a moment when they all stopped feeding suddenly. I quickly added the Sigma 1.4x teleconverter to the 150-600 lens. As it got darker with every minute, autofocus became a problem and the lens started hunting back and forth from time to time. Luckily a few clicks could be made nevertheless.

MONO LAKE

Nikon D750, Nikkor 16-35mm / f4 ------    

My goal last weekend was to come back with some decent photos from Mono Lake, California with its tufa columns and formations. Due to the three hours drive from Reno, Nevada I knew I wouldn’t be there in the early morning hours. I also didn’t want to risk to get trapped in fresh snow that was expected for the following night and so I left the lake in the early afternoon. With just a small time window around midday my expectations were not very high regarding the light. However, a very windy but clear day made for good colors and little haze in the air. The geology of the lake basin is fascinating and if you like to learn about the basics, here is the link that gives you some insight: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_Lake

 

BACK IN THE EASTERN SIERRA

It is hard to believe that it was already more than six years ago that we have been in the Eastern Sierra, and in particular at Mono Lake. We only had little time then and I wanted to go back to this beautiful area again. As mentioned in my last post, I spent parts of last week in Reno, Nevada for a business commitment. Staying there over the weekend allowed me to visit the Eastern Sierra again. I knew from other websites that they got a lot of snow in the Sierra Nevada this winter and despite the strong sun in March, most mountains were still covered in snow all the way down to the valleys.

Before I post some photos of the lake, that was formed at least 760,000 years ago, I like to show you an image from the mountains southwest of the Mono Lake area. Mono Lake is just east of Yosemite National Park and America’s most famous landscape photographer Ansel Adams has made many of his iconic photos in the Eastern Sierra.

I took of course my tripod with me during this trip but I haven’t used it the whole weekend. Extremely strong winds made handholding the camera the better choice. This image was created with the trusted combo of the Nikon D750 and the Nikkor 16-35, f/4 lens at 32 mm, 1/400 s, f/16, and ISO 100.

GOING OUT WEST

Rocky Mountains, Colorado -----------

Today I have nothing but a picture made with the camera in my phone through the window of a Boeing 737-800 on my way from Chicago to Las Vegas, Nevada. This was not my final destination and I’m writing these lines from a hotel in Reno, NV, where I will stay during a business trip over the next few days. I’m always excited to fly over the Rocky Mountains, especially since Joan and I have been at several locations in the mountains of Colorado during recent vacation trips. It seems always difficult to identify part of a landscape from high up in the air, even if you think you know the area. Shooting through the window of tinted plastic in an airplane may always lead to goofy looking colors, and processing the image on my 2008 notebook may not be the best recipe to produce a quality image. But some guy smarter than me said before, the best camera is always the one you have with you… My photo gear was safely stored up in the overhead compartment and it would have been a long story to explain why I didn’t even try to get it out of the bag…

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.

WOODPECKER TREE NO. 1

Female Red-bellied Woodpecker ---    

The tree in our front yard that I call “Woodpecker Tree No. 1” is probably one of the ugliest trees we have. But it is of big importance for our woodpeckers, if they want to approach the suet feeder that is not far from it. Before they enter the feeder, most of the time they land on this tree and hop down step by step, making sure no predator is nearby. The tree is also used to make clear who is next in line. There is a hierarchy between the different species and ages of the birds. The Red-bellied Woodpecker is able to scare the Northern Flickers away, even if some of them are larger. The much smaller Downy Woodpeckers always leave and wait patiently when one of the larger birds, like the Northern Flickers, Red-bellied Woodpeckers, or Hairy Woodpeckers come to the tree.

Downy Woodpecker

Both photos are from last weekend after we had some fresh snow on the ground. This helps a lot with light quantity. In addition I use flash fill, not as my main light source but to make the colors more vibrant and to improve mostly the quality of the light. I’m still testing a new flash extender that made it into my bag a few weeks ago and I will write about this piece of gear here in the blog shortly. “Woodpecker Tree No. 1” has been always a good place to make tests with new gear. I know the location and most importantly can compare my results with older photos that were shot under similar circumstances.

NEGATIVE SPACE

The use of negative space as an element of composition in art has intrigued me since a long time time, I just haven’t really pursued it much in my own photography yet. If you follow my blog permanently, you already know that earlier this week I had some good moments shooting while the morning fog lifted after a rainy night. This photo was created just seconds before the scene cleared up. The trees in the background and their reflections on the water are still just a hint of slightly darker gray. The color version of this image isn’t much different, not indeed, but I didn’t like the kinda dirty looking yellow tint from the sun mixing with the fog. Heritage Pond is right beside the highway and can be busy with people fishing and other recreational activities at times. The photo may suggest it was shot at a location far away from civilization. Of course it was not, but for a few seconds it made me feel like it was…

WHEN THE FOG LIFTS

Here is another photo from my brief shoot yesterday morning at the Heritage Pond Dubuque. The ice in the foreground covers actually another small pond just north of the parking lot and next to the Heritage Trail. As the fog started lifting and the sun came through, all the gray seemed to disappear. Within a couple minutes the colors came to life, telling the story about that the days of winter may be already numbered. The hawk, sitting high up in the tree, wasn’t planned but became part of the story.

The ice on the pond doesn’t really reflect how warm it was here during the last few days. I saw 23ºC (73ºF) today on the thermometer and we are still in February. However, there is a “blizzard watch” for parts of Iowa in the forecast for tomorrow and things can still change back to ‘real’ winter quickly…

FOGBOW (EVEN WITH OUT-HOUSE)

Heritage Pond, Sageville, Iowa

I knew I had a chance for an image when I went to Dubuque this morning and layers of fog penetrated the Little Maquoketa River Valley. I stopped at Heritage Pond, located half way between our home and the city. The sun gained power and the fog started lifting and while I tried to capture the moments of constantly changing fog patterns, I turned around and saw the development of a so called “fogbow”. It is also called a “White Rainbow”, but coming from a country where assembled words rule, ‘fogbow’ is a perfect word for my humble attempts to describe the miracles of nature in English language.

While I don’t do any ‘tinkering’ with my wildlife photos I try to romance the landscapes I see and like you to see them the same way I had in my mind while taking the photo. What does that mean? Well, I removed any trash, like a paper napkin, from my image. I also took the freedom to remove a couple cars that were just parked in the ‘wrong place’ (seen from a strictly photography point of view). I admit, having an out-house in the center of the photo is still not a flattering statement, and it would be easy to make it disappear, but it doesn’t really distract from the story telling about the fogbow and location. And that’s why I left it in my picture. Sure, the version that goes to National Geographic is without the out-house… just kidding…. 😊

NEW ALBIN TOWN HALL

I wanted to photograph this old town hall in Iowa’s farthest northeastern town New Albin since I saw this building for the first time about a year ago. The absence of some good clouds made me always hesitate during several previous visits. Well, today I finally was happy with the clouds.

What bothers me is that big advertising sign on the side of the building. Whoever made the decision to hang this monster there had little sense for the heritage of such an old building…

All images: Nikon D750, Nikkor 16-35mm / f4

I GOT HIM!

Brown Creeper, Little Maquoketa River Valley, Iowa ----------     

This photo was on my ‘Most Wanted List’ since a long time. I showed pictures of the Brown Creeper (Certhia americana) before here in the blog but none of them was well crafted (heavily cropped and lack of sharpness). It is not unusual to see them here in our woods but their appearance is almost unpredictable. They fly to the bottom of a tree and spiral upward very quickly while pecking for insects. The Brown Creeper uses its stiff tail for support when climbing. Their curved bill helps them to get the food out of the smallest cracks and from behind the bark. After the bird is done with one tree it hops down to the base of another tree and starts all over again. Here is some trivia, in my home country Germany lives a relative, called the ‘Gartenbaumläufer’ (Certhia brachydactyla). It looks very similar to the American species.

Male White-breasted Nuthatch

While waiting for the appearance of the Brown Creeper another tree climber showed up several times. The White-breasted Nuthatch is a regular visitor here and we can see them all year long. Beside the obvious visual differences between the creeper and the nuthatch, the White-breasted Nuthatch flies to a higher point of the tree and usually hops down the trunk. ‘Nuthatch’ is derived from its habit of placing seeds or nuts in crevices of trees and prying them open with its bill. (source: iBird Pro App)

FIRST GLIMPSE

Great Horned Owl  ------------   

It looks like I show you the same image at this time of every year. Yes, a Great Horned Owl sits again in the nest at Mud Lake Park, just a stone throw away from the Mississippi River. 2017 is the fifth year in a row that the Great Horned has chosen this nest site. A couple other photographers have emailed me during the last days that they saw the owl and even the male was spotted in another tree (Thank you Linda and Ken!). Incubation takes about 28 to 35 days and is mostly done by the female.

 I was there yesterday afternoon but the bird was out of the nest. Today I used my lunch break to drive down to Mud Lake again and was even able to make a few clicks. Distance is always a bit of a problem and I used all my technical means to overcome it. First, the Sigma APO Teleconverter 1.4x EX DG was mounted between the Sigma 150-600 mm lens and the camera to extend the focal length to 850 mm. Second, the D750 was set to DX crop mode, which gave me the equivalent angle of view of a 1275 mm lens. I still cropped a little sliver on the right and top to keep a few distracting branches out of the frame. At that time of the day I had to shoot against the sun but a thin layer of clouds didn’t make this a big problem. Dialing in exposure compensation of +1 1/3 EV delivered the best results today. 

MISSED VALENTINE'S DAY SHOT

Nikon D750, Sigma 150-600mm / f5-6.3 DG OS HSM Sports Lens,Sigma APO Teleconverter 1.4x EX DG ------------

I was hoping to show you a perfect Valentine’s Day shot but it didn’t work out. A few seconds earlier a second Mourning Dove still perched on the same branch and both birds were facing each other like a good couple. While still fiddling with my camera one of them left. Well, maybe next year… 😏