Nature clicks #144 - Lesser Yellowleg

 

The Lesser Yellowlegs have their breeding grounds in Northern Canada and Alaska. We have this sandpiper here in Iowa only during migration. Last Sunday I shot pictures from noon until after 6PM. As always the quality of light gets so much better in the late afternoon and early evening and that's why I show you a couple images that were made closer to the end of daylight. They feed on aquatic insects and other invertebrates and they move permanently and probe with their long bill in the water. That means a lot of shots are slightly blurry and end up in the trash can of my Mac. It is all about peak of action, the brief moments between steps or when they lift their heads for a fraction of a second, when you can make the click. Setting the camera to 7 frames per second helps to freeze the right moment. I have a lot more to come from my shooting in the wetlands, so please come back here and check it out.

Making up for a week without a single click

 

Ok, no post last week. I have been on a business trip and despite driving more than a thousand miles I was not able to make a single click. I guess I made up for this yesterday and spent almost seven hours in the Green Island Wetlands near the Mississippi. It was a great day to be outside in the warm sun. Lots of wildlife seemed to enjoy the spring weather as well.

As the title of my blog suggests, my blog is not just about photography, it is also about sharing wildlife encounters and locations with you and if you live in or near Eastern Iowa I like to encourage you to go out and see the wetlands yourself. Right now, during bird migration is the best time to be there.

Not all animals come within a range where a click can be made but here is a list of what I saw yesterday:

Painted Turtle

Red-tailed Hawk (two at the same time but I screwed up and didn't get them in focus :-(   )

Lesser Yellowleg (more to come)

American White Pelican (A large scoop has arrived but was too far away for my lens today)

Song Sparrow

Northern Shoveler

Blue-winged Teal

Green-winged Teal

Mallard

Bufflehead

Wood Duck

Wilson's Snipe (A first sighting for me! More to  come)

Canada Goose (of course!)

American Coot

Muskrat (more to come)

Northern Leopard Frog

Great Blue Heron

Bald Eagle

Turkey Vulture (Finally got some good shots of this bird)

Great Egret (To my surprise I saw a single egret. Have never seen one so early.)

Red-winged Blackbird (they took possession of their breeding grounds and have spread everywhere)

There is a lake in the backwaters that was covered with thousands of waterbirds. I'm sure there were some more species I have not listed here. There is no way accessing this area of the wetlands without scaring them because you can't use the car as a blind and the area is wide open.

Making an image of the Painted Turtles is always a challenge in bright sunlight. You may ask, why didn't you use a polarizing filter to eliminate glare and reflections? Well, I don't have an 86 mm filter that would fit the Sigma 50-500 and I have no intends to get one. It does not happen very often that I miss the polarizer on the long lens and most of the time there wouldn't be enough light to keep the shutter speed in a manageable range anyway. Laying down in the dirt makes for a more interesting perspective and also helps a little with the glare on the turtle shell.

I haven't been able to sort through all images from yesterday's shooting trip but there will be more to come. So please stay tuned! ;-)

Easter on the farm

 

We spent Easter on the farm with our family in Northwest Iowa. Thank you to Don, Shelly, and Shelby for having us again and for being such wonderful hosts! Beside eating a wonderful Easter dinner we spent quite some time outside and despite a snow shower coming down we had a nice fire going.

It is an exciting time on the farm. Eight calves were born in the last few days and a few more are expected soon.

I always like to walk around on the farm with my camera and look for interesting subjects. This time I was on a mission. I have made many pictures of the more than 100 years old barn before but this weekend was probably my very last chance to work with this old farm building. It will be replaced by a new barn very soon because its shape may bare a safety risk and repair is not really an option anymore. The barn is still in use and everybody is a little sad about the fact that it has to go. It was the first time that I made pictures of the barn at night. There is a lamp post right beside the building and its position is just perfect for this shot. The fresh snow solves the problem with the muddy foreground and shoots some extra light towards the barn.

Bird migration week

 

I have been at the Mississippi River almost every evening this week. Bird migration is in full swing and the interested bird watcher has a good chance to see many birds that are only here for a very brief stop. The distance is quite often too big for a good quality image and many shots were made only for my own documentary and records.

This shot of the Greater White-fronted Geese is from last Saturday. It was made in the Green Island Wetlands and is heavily cropped. I was back there on Monday and they had moved on already on their journey to Greenland or Northern Canada. Instead I had my first sighting of four Snow Geese but they were even further away and no picture will be published this time.

The Northern Shovelers are really good looking ducks and a few stay even here during the summer. Beside them I saw Buffleheads, Canvasbacks, Lesser Scaups, Blue-winged Teals, Green-winged Teals, Common Mergansers, Hooded Mergansers, Wood Ducks, and the first pair of Killdeer.

Good places for bird watching are the John Deere March at the Mississippi River behind the big Deere factory here in Dubuque as well as Mud Lake Park, just north of it. The main channel of the river is free of ice, only the remains of some ice floes on this little island tell still the story about winter. There is still ice in the shallower backwaters but this may change during the next few days.

I will be in different parts of the country for the next seven days but I'm glad I had the chance to see the birds going north. I wish all friends of my blog a wonderful Easter weekend. Go out and make some clicks and let me know what you find!! :-)

Nature clicks #143 - Red Fox on the run

 

I have seen this female Red Fox many times during the last few months here in the woods and even in our driveway. It is a great looking canine. Making a picture of it is a different story. She does not wait until I come outside, and if I do, she will just run away immediately like in this shot. As you can see, nothing is really tack sharp but that is acceptable for this kind of an image and I really like the quality of the wintry light that makes her colors pop.

Green Island Wetlands - scouting for the signs of spring

 

I couldn't wait to get out in the wetlands again. It is usually the most exciting time in the year to be out there and I did not get disappointed yesterday. Although many water bodies are still frozen there is some open water now. Thousands of Mallards and Canada Geese use the wet fields to rest and feed on their way up north. Many Geese couples became territorial and get ready to brood in the wetlands. My friend, the Northern Harrier, was flying low during its hunt for mice but didn't still do me the favor to come a little closer. Well, my chance will come one of these days... ;-)

I got greeted by three Sandhill Cranes shortly after my arrival and as I wrote in this blog before, there is no better music in my ears than the calls of the Sandhill Cranes. As last year I saw a few Greater White-fronted Geese. They still have a long journey laying ahead of them because their breeding grounds are in Greenland or Northern Canada. I will show you a picture later this week. Among all the Mallards I saw some Northern Pintails, a duck species that is still on my "most wanted" list. Unfortunately the distance is mostly too wide for a frame filling image.

I wanted to scout some new routes for using the kayak in the Green Island Wetlands and did some hiking deeper into the area. The sun was shining, Bald Eagles soared overhead, and I counted 44 swans at two different locations. Life doesn't get much better! The area is mostly wide open and I had not much hope to get a good shot of any animal but took the camera and the 50-500 with me anyway. Suddenly five of the Trumpeter Swans, that were resting on the ice, took off, made a loop, and flew directly towards me and our little dog Cooper. While they approached us in a straight line I had time enough to zoom the lens back to 165 mm and focused on just three of them. I started firing probably too early and was almost out of memory when they were overhead. The camera slows down when the buffer becomes full and you can't shoot with 7 frames per second anymore.

Today the winter came back with some snow and gray clouds but yesterday I certainly found them, the signs of spring...

Nature clicks #142 - Purple Finch

Purple Finch, Female

I thought I have shown it all for this winter season but there is still something new. A couple weeks ago I already thought that bird photography with great light from down below (because of the light bouncing from the snow on the ground) is no longer possible. Wrong! The winter with all its features has still a grip on us. Since we moved here to Eastern Iowa in 2004 we saw every winter a lot of Purple Finches dominating the feeders around the house. Not so much this year! There was only one single female that was present all the time together with the American Goldfinches and a huge flock of House Finches. We wondered if she was just not in good shape while the other Purple Finches moved further south last fall. Since about two weeks we see a lot more Purple Finches, mostly females. Yesterday Joan and I heard and saw the first Red Winged Blackbirds (for the locals: at Bergman Park, near Asbury, IA), usually a safe sign of the upcoming spring. To make a long story short, it is just great to see the seasonal changes while still keeping the advantage of the wintry light.

Nature clicks #141 - Blue Jay

 

This is an image I tried to make all winter long. The Blue Jays are extremely shy and skittish. They move fast and sit usually in a particular spot no longer than a second or two.

Not that I need a bird book to identify these birds, their size and color make it very easy, but I still like to learn more about any animal we come across here. I don't get paid for what I'm writing now, nor do I get a freebie, but I really like to recommend an app for iPhone and iPad that I use all the time. I know there are some nature lovers that read my blog because of the information about nature and not so much about the photography facts. This is for you guys (well, for the photographers too ;-)  )!! If an iOS application ever deserves a five star rating it would be iBird PRO 6.1 (at least for me!). This is a great field guide to have with you all the time.

Why do I mention this? I just found a fact that I didn't know but thought it is quite interesting. "The Blue Jay's coloration is not derived by pigments, but is the result of light refraction due to the internal structure of the feathers; if a Blue Jay's feather is crushed, the blue disappears as the structure is destroyed." (source: iBird PRO 6.1). I didn't know this until today but I always wondered about the good luminosity of the blue feathers in any picture I previously made, no matter how bad the light was. Oh gosh, I love science!!! :-)

'The Bean' without people

 

Anytime I have been in Downtown Chicago during the last few years I made a visit to The Cloud Gate, aka 'The Bean', in Millenium Park. Never ever I thought it would be possible to make a picture of this great piece of art without any people in the frame. Well, last Saturday during the St. Patricks Day parade the plaza around the sculpture was blocked for the public. I don't know why this restriction was in place but here was my chance to make the click.

Because of the really dull and gray sky the image needed some enhancement. I'm testing some new software, the OnOne Perfect Photo Suite 7, in my post process work flow at the moment. So far I'm quite impressed what it can do for my photography. I really like how subtle some of the effects can be applied to an image and I believe after driving through the learning curve it can become a big time saver in my post process. Right now I'm just at the beginning of a free trial period and more testing needs to be done before I may come to a final conclusion. I still like and use the NIK Software plug-ins, especially Color Efex Pro 4.0 and Silver Efex Pro 2.0, but as many others I wonder if there is any future for these great plug-ins after Google bought NIK. Hard to believe but only time will tell...

St. Patricks Day weekend in Chicago

 

We spent the weekend in Chicago for celebrating the 30th birthday of Joan's son Evan. He was born on St. Patrick's Day and so we went downtown to see some of the St. Patricks Day events.

Despite some cold and nasty weather thousands of people wanted to see how the Chicago River gets dyed into a shade of Irish green by the plumber union people, a tradition since many years. All kinds of watercrafts were on the river and their owners enjoyed the attention from the crowd.

I made several clicks of this interesting MINI-Cooper boat but none of them really told the story about time and location. Part of the problem was that our viewing point was way too high above the river and the reflections of a gray sky on the water are just not really appealing. Later, when the crowds moved on to the St. Patricks Day Parade, I found a better spot and as the guy turned in front of three iconic skyscrapers (the two towers of Marina City, Mies van der Rohe's IBM building, and the Trump tower) I knew I had a shot that would work.