Making up for a week without a single click

 

Ok, no post last week. I have been on a business trip and despite driving more than a thousand miles I was not able to make a single click. I guess I made up for this yesterday and spent almost seven hours in the Green Island Wetlands near the Mississippi. It was a great day to be outside in the warm sun. Lots of wildlife seemed to enjoy the spring weather as well.

As the title of my blog suggests, my blog is not just about photography, it is also about sharing wildlife encounters and locations with you and if you live in or near Eastern Iowa I like to encourage you to go out and see the wetlands yourself. Right now, during bird migration is the best time to be there.

Not all animals come within a range where a click can be made but here is a list of what I saw yesterday:

Painted Turtle

Red-tailed Hawk (two at the same time but I screwed up and didn't get them in focus :-(   )

Lesser Yellowleg (more to come)

American White Pelican (A large scoop has arrived but was too far away for my lens today)

Song Sparrow

Northern Shoveler

Blue-winged Teal

Green-winged Teal

Mallard

Bufflehead

Wood Duck

Wilson's Snipe (A first sighting for me! More to  come)

Canada Goose (of course!)

American Coot

Muskrat (more to come)

Northern Leopard Frog

Great Blue Heron

Bald Eagle

Turkey Vulture (Finally got some good shots of this bird)

Great Egret (To my surprise I saw a single egret. Have never seen one so early.)

Red-winged Blackbird (they took possession of their breeding grounds and have spread everywhere)

There is a lake in the backwaters that was covered with thousands of waterbirds. I'm sure there were some more species I have not listed here. There is no way accessing this area of the wetlands without scaring them because you can't use the car as a blind and the area is wide open.

Making an image of the Painted Turtles is always a challenge in bright sunlight. You may ask, why didn't you use a polarizing filter to eliminate glare and reflections? Well, I don't have an 86 mm filter that would fit the Sigma 50-500 and I have no intends to get one. It does not happen very often that I miss the polarizer on the long lens and most of the time there wouldn't be enough light to keep the shutter speed in a manageable range anyway. Laying down in the dirt makes for a more interesting perspective and also helps a little with the glare on the turtle shell.

I haven't been able to sort through all images from yesterday's shooting trip but there will be more to come. So please stay tuned! ;-)

Bird migration week

 

I have been at the Mississippi River almost every evening this week. Bird migration is in full swing and the interested bird watcher has a good chance to see many birds that are only here for a very brief stop. The distance is quite often too big for a good quality image and many shots were made only for my own documentary and records.

This shot of the Greater White-fronted Geese is from last Saturday. It was made in the Green Island Wetlands and is heavily cropped. I was back there on Monday and they had moved on already on their journey to Greenland or Northern Canada. Instead I had my first sighting of four Snow Geese but they were even further away and no picture will be published this time.

The Northern Shovelers are really good looking ducks and a few stay even here during the summer. Beside them I saw Buffleheads, Canvasbacks, Lesser Scaups, Blue-winged Teals, Green-winged Teals, Common Mergansers, Hooded Mergansers, Wood Ducks, and the first pair of Killdeer.

Good places for bird watching are the John Deere March at the Mississippi River behind the big Deere factory here in Dubuque as well as Mud Lake Park, just north of it. The main channel of the river is free of ice, only the remains of some ice floes on this little island tell still the story about winter. There is still ice in the shallower backwaters but this may change during the next few days.

I will be in different parts of the country for the next seven days but I'm glad I had the chance to see the birds going north. I wish all friends of my blog a wonderful Easter weekend. Go out and make some clicks and let me know what you find!! :-)

Can't leave out the good light...

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

If you have followed my blog since a while you know already that I can't resist to make a click if light has something to offer. It doesn't matter to me if it is even a critter I photographed already many many times before. We have plenty of opportunities to shoot Canada Geese here in Eastern Iowa so I don't think we have to shoot them in bad light. Today I made another visit to the John Deere Marsh because I was hopping the Northern Pintails would be a little closer to shore than last Sunday. More Blue-winged Teals had arrived and the pintails were just among them. They seem to prefer a particular spot in the lake that is unfortunately too far away for my 500mm focal length. However, the geese across the boat landing appeared in great light during dusk today and of course, I put the legs of my tripod into the mud and tried to capture the light again...

Bird migration - new arrivals

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

This photo gives you maybe an idea what problems the photographer had to face in the Green Island Wetlands today. First, the wind was blowing very strong and even shooting from a car wasn't easy. The wind was shaking the car quite hefty and my keeper rate for sharp images dropped below average. Second, there was always some dust in the air and changing lenses was not really the smartest thing to do. I left my 50-500 on camera all day long. And third, the birds kept a good distance to the levees where I was shooting from.

Here comes the good news. Migration is in full swing and many birds that will spend the summer here in Eastern Iowa have already arrived. I had a blast watching the White Pelicans furiously fishing, even if it was quite a bit away. I saw from a distance a group of Northern Shovelers. Too far for a picture but this will change soon. The image below is from last year.

I worked for an hour along a mud bank with a season of Killdeer. Many clicks, some of them sharp, but I still don't really like any of them. Mud is not the best background and today it reflected the blue sky in a way I didn't like. It was way too harsh. Shooting from the car on top of the levee means you always shoot from slightly above. I was not able to eliminate the reflections by changing my shooting angle. Leaving the car is not really an option. The birds tolerate the car, but as soon you get out they will fly away.

Last not least, I made a first sighting today. It was a small group of Greater White-fronted Geese. I didn't know that until I had a closer look at the pelican photos on my screen at home. The photo above shows three of them on the left hand side. There were actually three more outside of the frame. The original files have enough resolution to zoom in and to identify the birds. They are probably a subspecies, flavirostris, the "Greenland" White-fronted Goose. This subspecies is darker and have an orange bill instead of pink.

On my way home I stopped briefly at the Mill Creek Ponds, west of Bellevue, Iowa. A pair of Trumpeter Swans made it home again, as already during the last two years, and it looks like I can continue my reports about them at this location. I really wonder if this is the same pair (probably) and if their young one made it through the winter? I also saw two male and a female Hooded Merganser in one of the ponds. Looks like new photo adventures are just waiting for us…

Just me and the geese...

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

It was a good weekend for wildlife photography, especially in the late afternoons on Saturday and Sunday. I stopped briefly at Dubuque's 16th Street Detention basin, a pond known for good bird watching. I met my photography friend Dave Updegraff there who was testing his new lens on some Bald Eagles and Great Blue Herons. We had a little chat and after that I moved on to my favorite wildlife shooting area along the Mississippi, the Green Island Wetlands. The ice  is melting rapidly and I was hoping to find Bald Eagles feeding on dead fish, like I had seen it last year. Surprisingly I didn't find any eagles there at all. My theory is, because of the mild winter the ice wasn't frozen as thick as last year and as a result less fish died. No fish means no eagles. I will consult a biologist sometime to find out if that is true.

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

As the ice disappears the Canada Geese move in. I was there both days, Saturday and Sunday, and it seemed the number of geese had increased quite a bit from one day to the next. If you are a follower of my blog you already know that it doesn't really matter to me what kind of critter is in front of my lens, if only the light is right. And it was great light. I spent two hours until sunset to watch how the light unfolded. I pushed the limits of handholding the camera by shooting ISO 100 the whole time. It was nobody there, not even people driving through. Just me and the geese. Time well spent…

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

Not as planned

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

Today things didn't really go my way. I had planned to go to Mississippi dam #14 down in Le Claire and was hoping to make some Bald Eagle pictures. I wrote about this already three days ago. All camera batteries were fully charged, the CF-cards formatted, and the gear was ready to be used. As always, I like to be prepared when I go out for any kind of shooting. It wasn't the photo gear that prevented me today from seeing any eagles. After four miles of driving I pulled over into the parking lot of Heritage Pond just north of Dubuque. I wanted to check on some noise coming from one of the front tires. What I found was a little crack that made the tire already bulging. I thought it was too dangerous to continue driving for several hours under those circumstances. After using all the words that are usually beeped out on TV I decided to return home. Better safe than sorry.

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

Just before I left I saw that a flock of Canada Geese and a couple Mallard Ducks were resting around a spot of open water on the thin ice of the pond. The light was great in quality and quantity. I got the tripod out and made a very slow and careful approach towards the birds. I took about 15 minutes to get as close as possible to the geese without disturbing them. 45 minutes and 490 clicks later a lady jumped out of her car and made the same approach in about 30 seconds!! The geese, of course, turned around and moved further away and the ducks were even flying off. I bet her pictures suck… ;-) What can I say, I guess I made the best out of my dilemma today. I came home with a damaged tire but also with a bunch of wildlife shots, and most important, I had a good time shooting in great light for almost an hour.

Nature clicks #38 - Both sides of the road

Nikon D200, Sigma 50-500 mm f/4.0-6.3, 500 mm (750 mm FX), 1/320s, f/8, -1 EV, ISO 100

Yesterday I closed my post by mentioning another new bird I saw for the first time. While I worked with these Canada Geese and their young ones at one side of the road I had a look over my shoulder and saw a little heron on a tree above the water on the other side of the gravel road. I knew the geese wouldn't run away, turned the camera immediately, focused, and fired a burst. It was a Green Heron in a nice pose and it gave me only a few seconds before flying away. I have never been disappointed yet by visiting the Green Island Wetlands along the Mississippi…

Nikon D200, Sigma 50-500 mm f/4.0-6.3, 500 mm (750 mm FX), 1/125s, f/8, -1 EV, ISO 100