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.

Back at the great architects

 

I spent the last two evenings down in the valley at a colony of Cliff Swallows I found about three weeks ago underneath a bridge that crosses the Little Maquoketa River. Since then the swallows were so kind to built some new nests on the outside of the bridge so I didn’t have to climb underneath anymore, between big boulders and the mud of the river. The nests are still under an overhang of the bridge and it is necessary to throw some additional light at them for a good picture. For now I used my speed light mounted directly on top of the camera and it delivered some acceptable results. I may try my little softbox the next time and use it off camera for an even softer light with less shadows.

Cliff Swallows are some amazing architects who build their gourd-shaped nests out of mud and the darker color of some parts told me that they still work on them. The whole colony was very busy catching insects. We have gazillions of annoying little gnats here at the moment and some mosquitos as well, so there is food in abundance. Standing beside the river with a tripod for a long time requires the use of some bug spray on your skin to make it halfway bearable. Other than that, it is a lot of fun and very interesting to watch their interaction with each other.

It didn’t look like that they had laid their eggs yet. The swallows came repeatedly back to their nests, rested for a little while, and went out again for another feeding frenzy.

I can’t let this opportunity, to have these beautiful Cliff Swallows relatively close to our home, pass by and I hope I’m able to see them raising their offspring soon. I’ll keep you posted…

Nature clicks #150 - Bald Eagle

 

This is the image I had actually in mind for yesterday's post but then the encounter of the little foxes made the news first. This Bald Eagle has its nest near Mud Lake at the Mississippi River. I have seen the bird several times already and got an idea where the new nest is located up in the hills. As you might remember, the eagle nest at Mud Lake is taken by a Great Horned Owl now and my guess is that the eagles just chose another location for their nest.