What happened?

 

This is a valid question after I haven't posted in my blog for three weeks now. September is usual a very busy time for me because of an annual trade show at the McCormick Center in Chicago. As always, our company was  an exhibitor at PRINT 2013 and right before, during, and after the show is very little time for me to pursue any photography projects. But the real reason for my time of silence is that my MacBook went out of business just a couple days before the show started. The repair took longer than expected and it was a painful time to deal with it. I will spare you all the details, I'm just happy to have the darn thing back... :-) Thank you to all of you who visited my blog despite nothing new was posted here!

We are packing the stuff for our upcoming vacation. However, the weather was too nice to be inside all day long and so I took Cooper, our little dog, and went for a walk on the Heritage Trail. The trail down in the valley of the Little Maquoketa River was once a railroad track. This grasshopper enjoyed the warm September sun on one of the new boards that tell about the history of the little towns in the valley and the railroad that ones connected them. We have plenty of grasshoppers here and I usually don't pay too much attention, but I really liked the light and the colors it revealed on this little bug.

Brown Thrasher captured with SB600 and Better Beamer flash extender

 

We had the third rainy day in a row and our original plans to use the kayaks during this holiday weekend had to be dumped. The canopy of leaves doesn't let much light coming through anymore and so it was the right decision to take the SB600 flashlight and Better Beamer flash extender with me when we went for a hike on the Heritage trail this afternoon. For those who are new in my blog, the Heritage trail is on an old abandoned railroad track that ones connected Chicago with St. Paul in Minnesota. It follows the Little Maquoketa River just north of Dubuque, Iowa and is a great trail for all kinds of recreation, including nature photography. Because of the weather all the bicycle riders and runners that are usually on the trail stayed home and we had it all for ourselves.

We saw several warblers, Indigo Buntings, and American Redstarts again and the young eagle that we discovered recently in a nest has grown quite a bit. The best shooting opportunity came shortly after we started our little hike. For the second time this year a Brown Thrasher showed up in front of the lens. You can click HERE for the older post about this bird. I would not have been able to make this photo without the flashlight and flash extender attached to it. I don't care how far I have to carry the equipment. If at the end of the day one image that I like is on the flash card , I know it was worth the effort...

Nature clicks #164 - Belted Kingfisher

 

Joan and I went for a walk on the Heritage Trail down in the valley of the Little Maquoketa River this evening. We had our little dog Cooper with us and what actually was planned to be a "short dog walk" ended up to be a great bird watching event all evening long. We discovered another nest of a Bald Eagle and were very excited to see a young eagle sitting in there. We had two new first sightings, an American Redstart and a Harris Sparrow. Many Baltimore Orioles were feeding and singing high up in the trees and Goldfinches and Red-winged Blackbirds were everywhere. The low sun and some dramatic clouds made all the colors even more spectacular. It is definitely the best time of the year here in Eastern Iowa, at least in my humble opinion... :-)

My personal highlight was this Belted Kingfisher, a bird I have tried to photograph many times before with very little success. Distance was a bit of a problem again. A fenced pasture between the trail and the river did not allow to get closer to the bird and that's why I cropped the image quite a bit. It is not difficult to find a kingfisher at the Little Maquoketa River, quite often you can hear them before you see them, but they are very skittish and don't make it easy to get close even under better circumstances. However, it is the best shot I was able to make so far and it will make it into my Iowa wildlife gallery until I can make a better photo.