Breakfast for the eagle

 

I was about to enter my car down at the Mississippi River yesterday morning when I saw a Bald Eagle flying up from the water with something flapping in its talons. My first thought was it had caught a fish. The bird landed in a tree nearby and I realized that the eagle had preyed a small bird, which I later identified as an American Coot. They are here in abundance and obviously part of the eagles diet. What followed was a bloody mess for the bird and the eagle didn’t look too pretty either around its bill. I have seen many Bald Eagles catching and eating fish but never feeding on waterfowl until yesterday.

My tripod was already stored in the car and so I tried to handle the long and heavy lens by hand. Branches obstructed the view and the sun was straight behind the eagle, means I had to move slowly to a different spot. The eagle gave me less than three minutes to figure out a way to overcome a tricky light situation and find the gap between the gazillions of bare branches. It wasn’t until a fisherman’s boat drove by behind me that the eagle took off with the remains of the coot in its talons. What an exciting moment to start a day with…

Nature clicks #205 - Yellow-bellied Sapsucker and other bird infos

 

We must live in woodpecker paradise and I’m absolutely thrilled to show you today’s photo. The Yellow-bellied Sapsucker is the 7th woodpecker species that we have seen in our woods here and it is a first sighting for us. The yellow bellied is the only sapsucker that is normally found in the eastern part of the continent and is our most highly migratory woodpecker. (source: National Geographic Complete Birds of North America). I saw this female already three days ago on our big maple tree in front of the house and she has returned every day since.

Making this photo was not an easy task. The sapsucker is very skittish and it took me three days to make finally a click and produce an image that I can show here in the blog. The light came from the back and my lens had some problems to focus properly under these conditions. I may try something different tomorrow evening.

I know some birders read my blog and therefor I like to give an update on some other birds. The Brown Creeper is still here and I wonder if this one will stay during the summer. My literature tells me that this is a possibility for our area. The Eastern Phoebe has arrived this week and I made already some photos. I wasn’t at Mud Lake at the Mississippi today but saw the young owlet with the mother bird earlier this week. Not a great image, more a documentary shot for those who care. However, this old eagle's nest is huge and it gives you an idea how big this Great Horned Owl really is. The young one seems to do well.

Chipmunk cleans up

 

Two weeks ago this log was still covered under two feet of snow. It’s all gone now and the Eastern Chipmunk seems to enjoy this as much as we do. There was a bird feeder with sunflower seeds nearby during the winter and I’m sure the chipmunk found every single seed that fell into the hollow log and that the birds didn’t get. I saw it running with full cheeks several times and the dirt in its fur tells the story...

Nature clicks #204 - Bufflehead

 

I try this bird since several years and this is how much I got so far. The Bufflehead is one of those pretty ducks that are extremely skittish. We see them every spring during migration time, mainly on the Mississippi River, but every photo I made before showed only some white dots on the water. They keep their distance from the shore as soon they sense some movement. The Buffleheads have their breeding grounds in Canada and the Mississippi Valley is obviously one of their migration routes. I have updated my EASTERN IOWA WILDLIFE GALLERY recently but I guess I have to do it again… :-)

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.

Love them clouds...

 

The avid reader of my blog already knows, if a photo from high in the sky shows up after a quiet week that I was on a business trip with very few opportunities for using the camera. I came back from a conference in Dallas, Texas last night. These two photos were made shortly after take-off in DFW and the shape of the clouds indicate we were flying around some heavy weather. What I didn’t knew at this time was that the weather created many flight delays and cancellations. Needless to say that I, of course, was effected and instead of having a two hour stop I spent ten hours in Chicago O’Hare. At least I got home around midnight, other people were not so lucky…

Shooting through the window of an airplane can be challenging. Little space, reflections, vibrations, or dirt and moisture on the glass are some of the difficulties you may have to deal with. My window was relatively clean and had only minor scratches this time but dealing with the tint of the glass or plastic isn’t my favorite task in the post process. I still kept it simple and just finished the RAW file in Adobe Lightroom, except for the downsizing and export as a jpeg, which I always do in Photoshop by using pre-recorded actions.

I used the Zeiss 35mm f/2 lens, which can only be focussed manually, but even with any of my AF lenses I would revert to manual focus mode for shooting through two layers of tinted glass. I love shooting clouds and making them the subject of my image. It doesn’t always turn out but it is always worth to try, and hey, there is a delete key on the computer… ;-)

River in motion and other news

 

The first photo is already three days old. The ice on the Mississippi started to break up and just got jammed across Mud Lake because of the dam a couple miles down the river. The other image is from today at almost the same spot. The main channel is clear now and only the quieter backwaters and the marina are still frozen over. There were even a few guys ice fishing on the ice of the marina this evening.

Hundreds of Canvasback moved in (the photo shows only a small fraction) and will probably continue to go further up the river. Unfortunately I haven’t been able yet to get my lens close to them. I’m not crazy enough to step on the ice of a big river in motion… ;-)

The other news is that I saw clearly an owlet in the nest of the Great Horned Owl. The mother wasn’t present at my arrival at Mud Lake Park but a fuzzy looking young owl peeked over the edge of the nest when I pulled into the area. After watching the ducks on the river I checked the nest again and the mother had returned. The owlet wasn’t visible anymore. I guess the mother bird ordered it back into the safety of the deep nest. I’m excited about maybe having the opportunity again to make some photos of a young Great Horned Owl in the next few weeks. We will see…

Simple task today

 

The photo was made this evening in icy wind but with soft sunlight at the 16th Street Basin in Dubuque, Iowa. I removed a couple small spots on the water, no crop, high-pass sharpening, done deal. I wished it would be always that simple… :-)

Nature clicks #202 - Horned Lark

 

The only place where I was able to make a good click of the Horned Lark before was on Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake, Utah. I have seen it here in Eastern Iowa, I have tried, but never got any photo that was worth to be shown anywhere. Oh no, this one isn’t really either (it’s cropped!), but it breaks the jinx… :-) I love the little devil-like horns of the lark that make for its name. I found the Horned Lark at two locations this weekend and a “great background” wasn’t really an option because they show up in the fields were the snow just melted a day before. Raw earth and not too pretty… ;-) So, what does that mean? The Horned Lark stays on the list of birds that need more work from my side. The goal remains, making a photo that is not cropped and that is tack sharp. Long way to go in this matter…

Weekend river report ;-)

 

I wanted to see what’s going on along the Mississippi River between Dubuque, the Green Island Wetlands, and Sabula, Iowa this weekend and I was not disappointed. There is still some ice cover above the dams in the river, where the water is more like a big lake, but below the dams and where the river is narrow the ice is gone.

Here is a list of birds that I saw this weekend. Not all came into reach for a quality photo but I write this also for those folks who are just interested in the nature along this part of the Mississippi.

Red-tailed Hawk, Green Island Wetlands

Bald Eagles, almost everywhere along the river

Ring-billed Gulls, everywhere!

American White Pelicans, Green Island, Sabula

6 Sandhill Cranes, Green Island

Mallards, Dubuque + Green Island

Hooded Merganser, Sabula + Mud Lake Dubuque

Common Merganser, 5 males and one female at Mud Lake Dubuque (not much open water there yet but they obviously used a couple open spots to rest during their migration)

Great Blue Herons, Dubuque

Canada Geese, Green Island, many pairs everywhere,

Buffle Heads, Sabula

Great Horned Owl, Mud Lake (was near the nest again, saw still just the mother on the nest)

Horned Lark, Green Island + near Sherill, IA

American Kestrel, south of Bellevue IA

And finally I saw several pairs of Northern Shovelers in the Green Island Wetlands. This is a duck that is easy to identify, not just because of their spoon-like, oversized bill. It takes quite some patience before you can make the click. There is no way to enforce it. The best way is to drive up close, stop the car and wait until they swim towards you. Don’t make any sudden move and don't get out of the car,  they will otherwise get airborne within a second. The Northern Shovelers seemed to search the company of the Canada Geese. They may feel safer in their presence.

Spring is an exciting time along the Mississippi and I always look forward to after the winter, especially after a long and cold one as the last…;-)