Joan and I had a blast today. We went to almost every possible location along the Mississippi where there is a chance to see birds and other wildlife. Starting in Dubuque, Iowa we went to Bellevue, Green Island, Sabula, and back to Green Island. Joan climbs the steep learning curve of handling and using a new camera system at the moment. My wife always had a good eye for photography and she is a darn good travel photographer. However, she wasn’t always happy with the performance of her old Fuji camera and lens. She finally joined the “Family Nikon Club” and is now the proud owner of a brand new Nikon D5300 with a Nikon 18-140 mm lens. One of the advantages of choosing Nikon is that Joan can also use some of my lenses, although the 18-140 is a nice lens for travel photography. Today we put the Sigma 150/f2.8 plus Teleconverter 1.4 on the DX body of the Nikon D5300. This gave her the equivalent to 315 mm / f4 on a full frame camera , a range that allows already some decent wildlife photography.
What did we see today? Lots of Bald Eagles, some Great Blue Herons, American White Pelicans, hundreds of Canada Geese, Mallards, and Ring-billed Gulls. And there was a “first one” for me. We followed a lark in the Green Island Wetlands and for some reason I thought it was an Eastern Meadowlark. It wasn’t before I sorted through my images at home that I realized that it was instead a Horned Lark.
The photo of these two Bald Eagles was made right here in Dubuque. More of them were sitting in the trees and on the ice looking out for fish.