Nature clicks #121 - White-tailed Prairie Dog

 

On our way from Colorado's State Forest State Park to Rocky Mountain National Park we stopped a couple times at access points to the Arapaho National Wildlife Refuge. It is situated in a glacial basin in north-central Colorado and is known locally as North Park. According to the information brochure of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service the refuge provides habitat for a variety of wildlife including 208 species of birds, 37 species of mammals, 6 species of reptiles and amphibians, and 10 species of fish. We saw quite a few animals including Moose, Mule, Deer, Northern Harriers, American Avocets, and others. The downside of just passing through an area during day time is that the photographer has no chance to wait for the best light or even wait for the wildlife to come. Our travel plans allowed only for a short but very pleasant visit.

One of the little critters you may find there is the White-tailed Prairie Dog. We have seen its cousin the Black-tailed Prairie Dog in the Badlands, South Dakota before but the white-tailed lives in higher elevations like North Park. They warn each other with alarm calls if danger, like a circling bird of prey, shows up and within a moment every prairie dog disappears in a hole. This one here stood almost motionless between the sagebrush and was obviously on guard. We had great fun watching them.

Family of five

 

I like to interrupt my little report about our adventures in the Rocky Mountains for an actual update on some birds I have written about many times here in my blog. I'm talking about the Trumpeter Swans at the Mill Creek Ponds 30 miles south of here. I haven't been there since June 2, when I found the female sitting on the nest. To my surprise I found yesterday a whole swan family swimming on, what was left of the pond. The size of this little lake has shrunk by about 60-70 percent. As you can see three young swans have been raised during the last three months. I was thrilled to see that they all looked healthy. The only advantage of the dilemma with the drought, and as a result a much smaller pond, is the fact that it was much easier to get close to the Trumpeter Swans. With other words, no really need for cropping any images... :-)

Nature clicks #120 - Least Chipmunk

 

No matter in what area we went in the Rocky Mountains there were always some chipmunks or squirrels present. The smallest one of them is the Least Chipmunk. They are much smaller than the Eastern Chipmunk that we have here at home in Iowa. The little guys were all very busy finding food for the long winter. The Least Chipmunk's diet contains seeds, fruits, berries, and grasses but it also eats fungi and invertebrates. We had a lot of fun watching them.

Nature clicks #119 - Red-tailed Hawk

 

We spent a couple days in the "State Forest State Park" in Colorado. It is known for its moose population, but however, we have seen moose at other places but unfortunately not in this state park. Other wildlife was always present and while driving on a bumpy gravel road we encountered this Red-tailed Hawk sitting on top of a pine. When I'm driving on small gravel roads or off-road I always have the D300s with the Sigma 50-500 attached sitting on my lap. This allows me to act quickly and shoot handhold just out the window of the car if an opportunity like this hawk comes up.

It was windy and the hawk was moving constantly. I had to watch my shutter speed and in order to maintain 1/1000s I bumped up the ISO to 400. I try to stay in the basement with my ISO between 100 and 200 for outmost detail but sometimes a compromise will make the difference between getting the shot or not. More to come...

Nature clicks #118 - Steller's Jay

 

They know how to hide from a photographer very well. We have seen them at many locations in the mountains of the Western United States before but I never have been able to make a clean shot. The Steller's Jay may come close to a campsite or parking lot but always tries to stay in the shade of a tree or rock.  Usually I'm happy if I get a well lit front portrait like this of a bird but this one doesn't show any of the beautiful blue feathers of its back and tail. Well, next time....

Bye, bye little wrens!

I can't move on to the next thing here in my blog without finishing the little story about the House Wrens in our front yard, although these images are already a week old. Friday afternoon the female was still feeding the young birds in the nest box. The insects she carried were quite big and this told me that the young wrens would leave the nest very soon. Ones in a while a young bird would stick its head out of the hole but I have been unable to find out how many birds mama wren was actually feeding.

However, we were not at home during the weekend and when we came back on Sunday the young wrens were gone. As you maybe remember the first brood was destroyed earlier this summer and all what I can hope for is that the little House Wrens are somewhere out there growing up and making it safely to their winter grounds in the South. I can't wait until next spring when a male will send out his trilling, flutelike melody in order to attract a female right in front of the bedroom window. You can bet on that the nest box will be cleaned and will be ready to host the next generation of House Wrens. They are so much fun to watch and a great subject to improve the skills for wildlife photography.

Nature clicks #117 - American Goldfinch

Just a short post today. The American Goldfinch is present all the year around in the timber around our house. We see them every day but it is really not easy to get close to them for a frame filling picture. During my lunch break today I tried to snap a few shots of the House Wren who is extremely busy to catch enough insects for the young ones in the bird box. Suddenly this male goldfinch landed at the nearby birdbath and so I just made a few clicks of this wonderful bird instead. It wasn't before I reviewed the images on my screen when I saw that the finch had some unusual growth on his right foot between the toes. I don't know what it is but I like to find out.

News about the House Wrens

A couple weeks ago I reported that the House Wrens get ready for another offspring. I don't know how many eggs have been in the nest but the female wren is definitely feeding another brood. I have not seen or heard the male in the last few days and I wonder if he got caught by a predator or just moved on to a different place. It is not uncommon that the females feed the young wrens just alone.

After a badly needed rain today the light was good for a few shots at the nest box. No harsh light and shadows today!  ;-)  The female did an excellent job bringing spiders and moths and with each turn she did also some "house cleaning". As written here before, the first brood this year got destroyed but now we have hope that the second one will lead to a new generation of House Wrens.

Update from the wetlands

 

As expected the water in the Green Island Wetlands along the Mississippi has dropped to the lowest level I have ever seen it. Many of the smaller ponds and canals beside the gravel roads are totally dried out. Only the larger ponds have still some water left. Needless to say that water fowl is not present at all, except for a family of Wood Ducks that I saw far away. Some egrets and herons still try to feed in the mud and shallow puddles where water is present.

I drove my usual loop to check the situation and to learn what animals make the best out of these very dry conditions we have here in Iowa at the moment. I saw a raccoon mother with five young ones feeding in the water that was left in one of the larger ponds. Unfortunately they were too far away for a photo that can be shown here.

Even this time I did not come back from the wetlands with an empty memory card. I had a very good opportunity to make an image of another flycatcher. The Eastern  Kingbird was posing for me and I grabbed my chance and shot a nice series of pictures. After they catch an insect they do not always return to the same perch but twice I was lucky enough to put the glass on the kingbird in front of a decent background. I only had to clone out a small branch that stuck into the frame from the side but this is an easy task in the post process at home.

Despite all the dried out mud around, you can still find some beauty in the landscape. The water lilies are in full bloom and the big patches are always good for a picture.

Nature clicks #116 - House Wren

I'm always an advocate for paying attention to the wildlife close to your own home. It doesn't  need to be a National or State Park to experience and watch wildlife. Learning about the biology of the animals around your neighborhood will help you to make observations you may have missed otherwise. This becomes even more important if your time is very limited due to a busy working schedule or other things in life that have temporarily higher priorities in life than photography.

Every year the House Wrens have a nest in a box between the flowers right in front of our home. It is a thrill for me to wake up in the morning by the beautiful trilling, flutelike melody the males use to attract a female. The first brood this year was no success. One day I found the bird box on the ground. It was just about the time when we expected the young ones to hatch. The nest box was probably pulled down by a raccoon. The good news is that the male found a female again that will incubate eggs (I don't know if it is the same one since the wrens are not always monogamous) .

Usually the males are quiet while the female sits on the nest, except if an intruder comes close to the nest box. However, whenever the female wren leaves the nest to get some food for herself, the male starts singing in a kind of gurgling outburst that is repeated in short intervals. The goal was to get a photo where the mandible is in fast motion but the eye and other parts of the bird a still sharp and in focus. The key for this picture was to shoot several bursts with 7 frames per second. Quite often the wren closed his eyes or there was simply too much motion of the whole bird. Nothing really big, but despite I was not able to invest much time in this little shooting session I'm happy with the result.