Birding and Bird Photography

Got three new species for this year today! Canvasback, Ruddy duck, and Lesser scaup. I was just out searching for Eurasian Collared-Doves for a project and came across a pond with a surprisingly diverse amount of waterfowl given its size and isolation. It was the wrong time of day for the doves, so I never really saw any, but I saw a Lesser Scaup, Ruddy Ducks, Canvasbacks, lots of Canada Geese, Coots, Buffleheads, a few Mallards, a Cinnamon Teal, and about 100 gulls. Lots of sparrows in the bull rush and trees in the tributaries, too. The Canada geese were doing some serious courtship, lots of inciting and there was a big fight between two pairs. I wish my shutter speed was higher for that, but we'll see what I got. Going through pictures now!
Edit: just spotted a green-winged teal in one of my photos. He was sleepin' over at the far end of the pond, which is probably why I didn't see him with the binos.

 

Pics from today:


Mourning Dove by 92shawman, on Flickr


American Coot by 92shawman, on Flickr


Canada Geese by 92shawman, on Flickr

Fight Fight Fight!

Canada Geese by 92shawman, on Flickr


Canada Goose by 92shawman, on Flickr

I'm bummed the guy being chased was out of the frame for this photo

Canada Goose by 92shawman, on Flickr

First time seeing these guys!

Canvasbacks by 92shawman, on Flickr


Canada Goose by 92shawman, on Flickr


Canada Goose by 92shawman, on Flickr


Ruddy Duck by 92shawman, on Flickr


Black Phoebe by 92shawman, on Flickr

I seem to have really good luck with these sparrows:

Lincoln's Sparrow by 92shawman, on Flickr



Bufflehead by 92shawman, on Flickr

Cool find for the day:

Lesser Scaup by 92shawman, on Flickr

 

Not a birdwatcher but I did manage to snap a shot of this Stellar's Jay while snowshoeing in Rocky Mt. National Park Saturday.

 

Yeah! And that image is cropped in quite a bit from the original photo. I'm amazed at how well it came out considering that. Thanks!

Yeah Steller's Jays are quite noisy, especially in groups. Same with Western Scrub Jays and most other corvids. Everyone knows the scrub-jays on campus because they're so damn annoying

 

Jays are pretty smart too. Or at least it seems like it in camp

Nice Canada Goose Heavy landing...you got that moment that marks the transition between flight and settling in the water. Love that.

 

Wow great shots Kevin!

That landing is my favorite in the bunch although it is hard to pick just one, It looks like the tail is used as a rudder and drag brake never have noticed that before.

Jealous of the different Jays you all have from the Rockies and West. Always called the Grey Jay camp robbers and even had one fly in and steal a piece of silverware laying out about 5 feet from me years ago. Nothing is safe from them. On the Canadian border last week had a few camp robbers around but mainly blue jays. Only one day out of the week that it didn't snow and had blue skies.

 

The lady that has this facebook site works with my wife. Really great photo's if you want to look. She just started up the site, so she doesn't have all of her photo's on it.

 

Hey shaw, hopefully that ruddy sticks around till summer so u can get a pic of him in the red phase.

 

I wasn't sure what birds I would find on the North Shore when I went up. Ebird.org shows no birds in Cook County for Dec, Jan or Feb. Temps are often -40 to -45 F during those months and while I am there most of Oct. and Nov. have never been back up in the deep winter.

I know many people are used to seeing gulls because they live near the coast but in the middle of the country, not so much. And with a Boreal Forest for a backdrop.


Location is Grand Marais population 1,500 and the county seat of more than 3,000 square mile Cook County. And the only town even those that live 60 miles away have the address Grand Marais. It is a harbor town on Lake Superior 111 miles North of Duluth where I-35 N ends. The gulls sit on the shelf ice of the lake in the winter for protection from predators.


Lake Superior is the largest fresh water lake in the world and takes a long time to freeze. And also a long time to warm up. Life in the lake is fairly sterile because of this and the location so far North. On the way back last Sunday it was frozen solid which is the first time in decades it has done so.

Straight North out of Grand Marais and perpendicular to the Lake is the Gunflint Trail which is ~60 miles long and dead ends near the Canadian border. It runs through the Sawtooth Mountains and is not salted in the winter because the moose come out to lick the salt off the road and no one wins in those collisions. I stayed at the end of the trail in a cabin and there were plenty of birds although a lot fewer than summer.

Blue and Grey Jays, sparrows and goldfinches were most common


Black cap chickadee I think these guys can live anywhere now


Crows give way to Ravens. A wolf killed a deer near the cabin the first night and the pack dragged it out to the lake. Tried to sneak up on the Ravens feeding for a close up but they posted a sentry just like crows do and he alerted them. So next day I stalked the sentry and got pretty close before he saw me


And a new bird for me which is colorful and friendly.
Female Pine Grosbeak


Male Pine Grosbeak


By throwing sunflower seeds and corn out the window into the snow they eventually came right up to the window to feed. No cell phone, internet or satellite so this was my TV much of the time.


And of course it snowed almost every day so pretty much all my pictures have snow in them.

 

Thanks Ben! Highs still in the lower single digits during the day here over the next 2 weeks but it is time to head down to the river this weekend and see if I can get a shot at a golden eagle back in the bluffs or a bald over on the river. Think I'm ready to try a shot at it. Always a learning experience every time I go out and it beats cabin fever.

 

Definitely not a pic that compares with the rest of you guys but I was just screwing around today trying to shoot pics with my Iphone through my Vortex spotting scope and got this pic that I just thought was pretty fun of a couple ravens in the snow in the trees near my house

I'm definitely going to buy an adapter for the spotting scope to shoot through it with our DSLR

 

OZ that turned out pretty good especially considering the snow. Interesting, looking forward to seeing some more pics from that area. Lived in the Pacific NW on the Olympic Mountains side of Puget Sound for 2 years and it is the most beautiful area I have ever seen, and just gets better as you go North IMO.

Ben I'm glad to hear that the birds are moving North for you. I'm looking forward to taking down the suet feeders and putting up the hummingbird feeders but right now that is a ways off yet. Spring is one of my favorite times of the year and the birds passing through on the way back North are a big part of it, I hope to catch some with the camera this year. The sounds and songs of the new birds go a long ways to the sign that old man winter has finally reached the end and can't wait.

 

wow! great photos! kinda surprised to find a birding related thread here on TW, but I guess it's a big tent so maybe I shouldn't be. I started getting into photography about 20 years ago, before the digital revolution really took over. Then I got into birds and tried to merge the two interests with limited success. I started to realize that to get the shots I wanted would require some big, expensive glass. Plus i didn't like lugging all that gear when trekking around. I've got a ton of 35mm stuff that I need to get around to scanning one of these days, but in the mean time here are a few digital shots...

this was a baby Stellar's Jay that fell out of a nest before it fledged. Took care of it for about a week (including bringing it to the office so I could keep feeding it) and then he was good to go


Mountain quail


a very cooperative pacific golden-plover on Kauai



not a great pic, but one of the coolest birds I've seen. a bat falcon taken thru a scope in Panama



Not bird related but this is what I'm more getting into these days. infrared photography

 

Nice Ben

 

Very nice indeed Ben!

 

Nice shots this past week, guys! I've been so busy doing school work, it's pretty ridiculous. I need to get out to just spend some time shooting the birds, I'm spending all my time doing field work with them! The rain isn't helping right now, though. Next weekend, probably. I heard of a group of varied thrushes near campus, so I need to go try to find them before they head north!

Rosqeaux: I'm surprised with the turnout in here, too! Started with Ben and I going back and forth in the photography thread, so I thought, why not, I'll start a bird-specific thread and see where it goes. I'm really happy with the participation!
Nice shot of the plover, and awesome story with the Steller's Jay!

Ben: I really like that red-tail and those varied thrush shots! Kinglets, too, they're super tough to photograph 'cause they're like little ping-pong balls bouncing all over the veg. I would suggest cropping that vertical kinglet picture back a bit so that it's less grainy. It'll still look really cool even though it's not as zoomed in.

 

Nice shots Ben....i must admit i havent been out shooting in a few weeks. Me and a buddy went out 2 mondays ago for about 3 hrs but it was crappy drizzle weather. This was actually the first time though that have counted the number of species seen and it was 61. Only one or two were new ones to mark off the list but still a productive day none the less.

 

Ben very jealous of your trip to the Sound I wish you good bird hunting. Love those Robin pictures they show back up when there is still snow on the ground here but is the first sure sign that winter is on the way out. And great pictures as always.

So I just realized I can blame you and Kevin for the camera equipment that I now own LOL. Until I saw the pictures that you all posted on here I was pleased to just count another bird off the list when I saw one. Now I want to capture them with a picture, and am not happy with it unless it is a good shot. Have been wanting to do it for years and have been constantly researching and reading over that time but it took you guys and your pictures to push me into actually doing it so guess I should say thank you

Mark what Ben said! The only way I could ever see 61 species in a day is the spring or fall along the Mississippi River and that would be pushing it. You are really blessed where your at. Really want to get over there this weekend but more of this stupid snow yesterday and today not sure I can make it. The Golden Eagles head back to Northern Ontario by the end of March so not much time left to try to capture one with the camera. And it is very hard to find the ones that are there in the bluffs.

 

Dang, Lockeman, 61 in a day is pretty good! I was out looking for Eurasian-collared and Mourning Doves this morning for my school project and saw something like 22 species, mostly passerines. Added two to my year's list so far, putting me up to 87

Cold Iron, Thanks for the compliment! Always nice to get someone more into birding and photography. Sorry it's another expensive hobby, though...but at least it's mostly only up front costs but for the cost of driving to the bird-y areas. Just another way Tacomaworld is hard on the wallet

I'm bummed because I went out this morning without my camera expecting it to rain and while it did rain I missed out on a LOT of great photos. There was a Downy Woodpecker that hung out in a tree for me only like 8m away, woulda made a great shot.
There were also lots of robins and hermit thrushes out that were pretty close and would have made good photos. There was a northern mockingbird that I walked within 2m of, which was crazy! Hopefully tomorrow or monday will have less precip so I can bring out the camera with me.

 

Sorry to hear that the ponds were empty! A lot of the migrant waterfowl except for the canada geese have left here, too. We have a fairly large population of breeding mallards, I think, so they're still around. There are like 10 in the arboretum or something. On Tuesday I'll be heading out to a duck pond in Woodland to see if there are any of the Canvasbacks and Ruddy Ducks and maybe buffleheads still there, should be interesting! There are some good, cooperative sparrows there if nothing else.

For that kinglet, my personal preference would be to crop it to where he's just slightly off center and only takes up like 5% or less of the picture, if that makes sense. Maybe more like a similar size as he is in that second kinglet photo you posted. Sure he won't be very big, but it's easy to tell that you've cropped it in pretty far by the noise. If you're going for just showing the bird, cropped in is fine in my opinion, but for a better picture I'd say leave it a little farther cropped out. That'll hide some of that noise, even if the photo isn't the sharpest. Just my opinion, though, do whatever. I'm still impressed you got him like that! Kinglets are really tough.