Great Gray Owl

Recently a great gray owl was spotted in our area, thanks to some of my birding friends, I was informed of its location. I went looking for it Thursday morning, and thankfully the person keeping me informed was also looking for the bird, without his help I would not have spotted it in a tree way down a farm fencerow. As we were admiring the owl, it took off and flew to a tree at the side of road near to us, eventually moved to other trees also nearby, and I managed to get some good pictures of it.

Eagles

Today was a nice sunny day, just above freezing, so we decided to take a walk out to the cottage. The snow is still deep, but with the recent thaw/refreeze it is crusted so hard that we can easily walk right over top. While we were at the lake I heard the red-shouldered hawk calling, he was circling over the pines and telling the world of his return. There was also one robin hopping about in the melted areas along the rockwalls, picking about for a meal. On the drive home I spotted a pair of bald eagles sitting in the trees of a narrow valley, and managed to get some pictures.

The wonderful thing about digital raw files is the ability to blow them up. In spite of the size of the birds and a 300mm lens, they were far enough away to make it difficult to get a good shot.

Sparrow

Spotted this sparrow at Little Cat yesterday, Feb. 23, 2008. Turns out to be a song sparrow, not many seen during winter in our area.

Red-breasted nuthatch

1. Down at the local park there are flocks of chickadees that have become tame enough to take sunflower seeds from peoples' hands. This winter a red-breasted nutchatch has joined them, and has come to me several times over my visits this past month to pluck seeds from my hand. 'Tis difficult to hold a camera and catch a decent picture of these nimble little birds, but I managed to get this shot.

Night visions

I've been bitten by the bug to take long exposures of the night sky. Blame this on Terrence Dickinson, our locally famous astronomer, who gave a talk to our photo club this spring. Prompted by events like the Perseids meteor shower (cloudy that night, grrr!) and the lunar eclipse on August 28th, I decided to try out some of his suggestions. There's been a few late nights since then, with some moderate photographic successes.

Shot of star trails taken last night.

In the wee hours of the morning, the start of the lunar eclipse.

Peak of the eclipse.

Stars reflected

Just playing around with long exposures for night shots.

Loons and Herons

This morning, at about 4:30 a.m., I heard the loons kicking up a huge racket, and was worried that something was raiding the nest. They've been on the nest for about 3 weeks or more, we're hoping that any day now we'll see chicks. I paddled down the lake at about 7:00 a.m. in my kayak, and cruised by from about 40 feet away to check if there were still eggs. I was happy to see one of the loons on the nest, glaring at me. I took a few quick shots and kept on going. Last year's nest was raided by either racoons or coyotes or the otters, we're hoping they'll be successful this year.

***Note: Blessed be digital...long lenses and raw files...one can shoot from a distance, then enlarge and crop the image on the computer. The following are details of pictures from this morning, taken with a 300mm lens.

Detail from picture above of the loon giving me "the look". On the way back out she was on the open water, and I could see the two eggs.

On to the herons. Back further in the swamp I counted 7 nests, with 3 chicks in 6 of the nests, 4 in the 7th. Pretty good crop this year. I just hope my bullfrogs keep out of sight. I looked for grackle nests, sometimes grackles will find a hole in the underside of the pile of branches and tuck their nests in just out of reach of the herons. I'll have to take the binoculars with me next time and cruise around a bit more.

Can you imagine feeding this crew! When the parents come flying in with food, it sounds like a flock of hungry pteradactyls in a B-movie.

Detail of 3 chicks from another nest. This nest is only about 4 feet above the water, so I could a more straight-on view.

When I got back out onto the open water, the other loon was preening and seemed unconcerned as I drifted by. I waited with the camera ready, and caught "the stretch". We're keeping our fingers crossed that we'll soon see a pair of chicks with the adults.