Nature clicks #239 - Map Turtle

 

I haven’t made a single click last week and I couldn’t wait to go out again on the Mississippi today in the kayak and with the camera in my lap. This photo is as fresh as it gets. It is the first time that I had a chance to make a photo of a Map Turtle. They are usually the first ones to dive into the water as soon an intruder appears. It took three carefully executed approaches before I was able to come close enough without that the turtle jumped off the log.

Last weekend in the Green Island Wetlands I came across this female Painted Turtle. It was obviously moving between two ponds but took a rest in the middle of the gravel road. After making a couple clicks I took the turtle and carried it off the road. The Painted Turtle can be found all over in Iowa while the Map Turtle is only supported in the larger rivers of Eastern Iowa.

Nature clicks #238 - Killdeer (on the nest)

 

This isn’t my first image of a Killdeer sitting on eggs but it is definitely the one I always wanted to make. Will talk about this later.

This is in a corner of a big parking lot in the Green Island Wetlands but these birds love to lay their eggs there since I started watching them several years ago. It makes me always very nervous watching this, even if the parking lot is not busy this time of the year. It is mainly used for the trucks and boat trailers during the duck hunting season in the fall. However, beside me other people come out there to watch birds or to fish and it is easy to destroy the eggs without even knowing it.

Quiet often one of the adult birds tries to lure you away by running in a different direction or by sitting in an empty spot and pretending to be on the real nest. This one wasn’t moving and when I approached the bird carefully it lifted its body up and I was able to snap a picture and saw at least two eggs underneath the Killdeer.

The key for the photo was to put the belly down on the gravel and support the lens with a foam roll (“boat noodle”) that I use usually as my support on the car window. I remembered that the background was always the biggest problem with my older pictures and I crawled around the bird until I found the position where I acquired a liking for background and direction of light.

On the water again

 

A nice holiday weekend lies behind us. The weather was mild, but not hot, and we took the kayaks to the Green Island Wetland Preserve for some paddling and exploring new routes in this backwater area of the Mississippi. The water level in the river was still way above normal, which is not necessarily bad for paddling in the backwaters.

Many birds take care for their offspring and you may not see them much out in the open water. It is always a challenge to take the camera with the long lens into the boat but if everything comes together the results can be very rewarding. Shooting on eye level with a bird that swims or just sits along the shore leads to a more interesting perspective than shooting from an elevated road along the shore.

This pelican didn’t seem to be bothered by my presence as I approached it carefully and with very slow paddle strokes. I really wanted this photo because of the nice background with the blooming bushes and the story it tells about the fact that every island and peninsula is flooded.

Nature clicks #224 - Yellow-throated Vireo

 

Yesterday I mentioned my first sighting of a Yellow-throated Vireo in the Green Island Wetlands. I didn’t plan to show you this image because the bird was too far away and I cropped the heck out of it. The tree was on a little island in the water and I had no way to get closer, but it was important for me to make the click in order to find out what kind of bird it was. However, my friend Jeanine from Johannesburg in South Africa was asking if I had made a photo of the vireo since she had never seen one either. So here it is, not much detail and sharpness, and as I said before, it is cropped to death so you can at least see the bird in this photo. I have a second picture that shows the Yellow-throated Vireo more from the side but a shaking branch in front of the body makes it only useful for identification purposes. Well, this is how it goes in wildlife photography. Sometimes it takes several years before another, better chance comes again but if you don’t try again and again , you will never make the photo of your dreams…

Visit in the wetlands

 

It has been three weeks since I had my last visit in the Green Island Wetlands. The water level in the Mississippi River is still very high and this effects the wetlands as well. It was relatively quiet yesterday afternoon. I have not seen a single duck, not very many Canada Geese, and the strangest thing was that I didn’t see any goslings. I really wonder if the flood has destroyed some of the nests. This all doesn’t mean there was nothing going on. Some Great Egrets stood either in groups or alone in the water and hunted for fish and frogs. I saw a Yellow Warbler, a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, an Eastern Kingbird, and even had my first sighting of a Yellow-throated Vireo.

This muskrat looks like it is dozing but it was actually feeding and chewing on plants in the water under a carpet of duckweed.

Probably thousands of Red-Winged Blackbirds have finished their nests and the females sit on the eggs right now. This female here was irritated by my approach because I drove by very slowly with my “mobile blind”. She left the nest but returned within a minute. The first photo was made as she entered the nest again and pretty soon the breeding business continued. The males sit on higher perches, like trees or the remains of last year’s reeds, and watch out for predators. I have seen them in the past defending their territory very aggressively against crows or even eagles.

Nature clicks #209 - Northern Shoveler

 

I can’t resist to show you this photo of a male Northern Shoveler that I made last Sunday in the Green Island Wetlands. It took me several years to get this close to this colorful duck. It was slowly swimming along the shore and foraged by dabbling in the shallow water. They feed on tiny crustaceans, insects, mollusks, seeds, fish, and aquatic vegetation. I had to move my “mobile blind”, the car of course, several times to make this shot finally. It all came together, gesture of the bird, light, and colors…

Garter Snake's dinner

 

I promised you yesterday some more exciting things from my trip to the Green Island Wetlands last Sunday. While driving slowly on a dam between two ponds I suddenly saw a Garter Snake on the gravel road. The snake didn’t move away because it was busy with a Leopard Frog. The frog didn’t look too good, it was already dead, probably hit by a car. The Garter Snake didn’t care about how the dinner looked and starting swallowing its prey.

The snake didn’t worry too much about my presence, neither did I worry about the snake. Garter Snakes are harmless for humans and we see this species more than any other snake in our area. Shooting from above didn’t appeal to me and the only option to get an interesting perspective was to put my belly in the dirt.

It wasn’t long before only a frog leg stuck out of its mouth that the snake moved to the water and disappeared between the reeds…

Swallow's paradise

 

It was a great weekend for wildlife photography because all the summer birds came back and it wasn’t easy to decide where to shoot first. There was probably lots of action everywhere. I had to make a necessary trip to Davenport on Sunday and on my way back I spent several hours in the Green Island Wetlands.

There were thousands of swallows flying and catching insects over the water and marsh areas. I saw at least three species, the Northern Rough-winged Swallow, Barn Swallow, and Tree Swallow, and sometimes they were all in the same spots.

It was windy and sometimes large groups were resting together in a tree or shrub, like in the first image. The colors of the Tree and Barn Swallows are just wonderful and all of them are such elegant flyers and fun to watch.

There is a lot more exciting things to report from last weekend and hopefully time will allow me to do. So please stay tuned…

Nature clicks #207 - Yellow-headed Blackbird

 

Today’s photo is not going to win a contest but it is nevertheless important to me. I know only one location where to find the Yellow-headed Blackbird in Eastern Iowa, a small pond in the Green Island Wetlands. I have written before here in the blog how difficult it is to get close to these birds because their habitat, a patch of reeds and cat tails, is in the middle of a pond and most of the time they hide in the reeds. It is easy to hear them, their call is different from the abundant Red-winged Blackbird, which shares the same location. However, I’m happy to report that I saw and heard at least two males and both made a short appearance in the upper parts of last year’s cat tails.

I’m not proud of this image because it is cropped, much more than I like to admit, but I will try again. If I ever will make a good shot of this not so common bird, you will be the first one’s who will know about it… ;-)

Weekend river report ;-)

 

I wanted to see what’s going on along the Mississippi River between Dubuque, the Green Island Wetlands, and Sabula, Iowa this weekend and I was not disappointed. There is still some ice cover above the dams in the river, where the water is more like a big lake, but below the dams and where the river is narrow the ice is gone.

Here is a list of birds that I saw this weekend. Not all came into reach for a quality photo but I write this also for those folks who are just interested in the nature along this part of the Mississippi.

Red-tailed Hawk, Green Island Wetlands

Bald Eagles, almost everywhere along the river

Ring-billed Gulls, everywhere!

American White Pelicans, Green Island, Sabula

6 Sandhill Cranes, Green Island

Mallards, Dubuque + Green Island

Hooded Merganser, Sabula + Mud Lake Dubuque

Common Merganser, 5 males and one female at Mud Lake Dubuque (not much open water there yet but they obviously used a couple open spots to rest during their migration)

Great Blue Herons, Dubuque

Canada Geese, Green Island, many pairs everywhere,

Buffle Heads, Sabula

Great Horned Owl, Mud Lake (was near the nest again, saw still just the mother on the nest)

Horned Lark, Green Island + near Sherill, IA

American Kestrel, south of Bellevue IA

And finally I saw several pairs of Northern Shovelers in the Green Island Wetlands. This is a duck that is easy to identify, not just because of their spoon-like, oversized bill. It takes quite some patience before you can make the click. There is no way to enforce it. The best way is to drive up close, stop the car and wait until they swim towards you. Don’t make any sudden move and don't get out of the car,  they will otherwise get airborne within a second. The Northern Shovelers seemed to search the company of the Canada Geese. They may feel safer in their presence.

Spring is an exciting time along the Mississippi and I always look forward to after the winter, especially after a long and cold one as the last…;-)