Nature clicks #203 - American Kestrel

 

The photo of this American Kestrel is already a week old. Any time I can make a better image of a particular bird or other critter than the last one before I feel that I climbed the ladder one step up. My post “Nature clicks #197” in February was the first time I was able to show a picture of the kestrel but I wasn’t 100% satisfied with the shot (click HERE to see the older photo). Improvements in wildlife photography don’t come to you automatically. You may have to try over and over again. I really searched for kestrels during my little evening or weekend trips and finally got a better, although not perfect, shot of this wonderful falcon. I still had to crop the image. They like to sit high up on power lines along the roads and most of the time fly away as soon the car stops. A lot of things have to come together to make these kind of clicks. If I see one and it is on the passenger side of the car, I turn around and approach the bird from the other direction. If you try this make sure nobody is behind you! I have the camera in my lap and it is turned on already. I take it in my hands while still rolling, stop the car, focus through the open window, and finally fire the shutter release button. If you are lucky the bird gives you a few seconds but quite often they take off as soon the car comes to a stand still. I’m sure you can’t do this in downtown Chicago ;-) but on the small county roads and gravel roads we have here in Iowa I feel comfortable to work this way. However, having an eye on the road and in the rearview mirror all the time is essential for your own safety and the safety of others.

Simple clicks (still with snow and ice)

 

I went on “kestrel patrol” again this evening. I saw the bird briefly but haven’t been able to put the glass on it. Instead I made another image of this old farm house on the hill. A different angle, a different lens, some nice clouds, and you can get a totally different result from the same subject. Click HERE if you like to see the photo that I made ten days ago after a snow storm.

Mud Lake at the big river isn’t far from this location and so I stopped again at the owl’s nest. The adult bird was still sitting in the nest but no evidence that a young bird has hatched.

As the sun disappeared behind the ridge the other side of the Mississippi got painted with some nice and warm light. I used the SIGMA 50-500 for both landscape shots today. The second photo was made at 370 mm and I love how it compresses the scene. It looks like the railroad tracks on the other side are just a good stone throw away but the river is actually 2.3 km (~1.4 mi) wide at this point. As you can see the Mississippi is still covered with ice but we have some warmer days coming and this will change everything here.

Nature clicks #197 - American Kestrel

 

While cruising around this weekend and scouting for the first signs of spring I came across this male American Kestrel. The falcon was sitting up high on an electrical line beside a gravel road. If it would have been a bird that I had photographed many times before, I would not have made the shot because the distance to the bird was fairly long and there was nothing I could do about it. Because it was the first time that I had a chance to point my lens at a kestrel I had of course to make the clicks. Needless to say that the image is cropped quite a bit. I have seen other kestrels before, so it wasn’t a first sighting, but now, after the jinx is broken, I look forward to find another opportunity that hopefully may not require to crop the photo in the post process. Happy to add another species to my Iowa Wildlife gallery  :-)