Friday ~ March 05, 2021

Posted by Dave Updegraff on March 5, 2021
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , .

Happy Friday!

Yesterday I had lunch with a good Friend down in Bellevue, Iowa.  I hadn’t seen him in more than a year (mainly because of Covid) so it was great to catch up.

After lunch I headed back to Dubuque and got about 3 miles out of town when I thought, gosh I’m only 9 miles from Green Island, why not go to the wildlife preserve and see if anything is around.

I had some reservations about going there since my vehicle was pretty clean and I knew what the conditions would be like in Green Island.  But what the heck.

When I got to the preserve it was much worse than I thought.  The roads were still heavily snow covered and muddy.  Well in for a penny in for a pound.  So, I put it in 4-wheel drive and ventured into the muck.

I didn’t see much of anything except the ubiquitous Canada geese but nothing else.  When I got to the end of the road, I saw more eagles in the trees then I can ever remember.  Of course, they scattered and took off before I could get off a shot.

I decided to use my vehicle as a blind and just turned off the engine rolled down the window and sat.  I sat for almost an hour and slowly some of them came back to the trees and to the fish one was in the middle of eating.

I’m going to show you more eagle pictures than you probably want to see but I couldn’t help myself.  It wasn’t as much fun as photographing them catching fish or flying over water but hey, they are eagles and I’ll take an eagle’s picture any day of the week.

Enjoy your weekend.

Wednesday ~ March 03, 2021

Posted by Dave Updegraff on March 3, 2021
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , .

Happy Wednesday!

I have talked about the 16th Street Basin many times on this blog.  It used to be one of my favorite places to photograph wildlife.  But then the powers to be cut down most of the trees and put up a sun farm and a lot of wildlife never came back.

Yesterday I drove past the basin and was happy to see several species of wildlife there. Nothing like it used to be but there were mallard ducks, Canada geese, ring-billed gulls, and even a couple of eagles, who remained pretty far out in the middle, so it was very difficult to get a good image of them.

So, today is all about the mallard ducks. They were close enough to the short to get some images of them. This particular image is funny because I noticed a male and female (I am allowed to say that anymore?) swimming in circles. When I focused on them with the long lens I notice that the male had a fish he was trying to eat and the female was trying to get it away from him.
He finally got it down, so she got nothing.
Enjoy your day.

 

 

Thursday ~ February 11, 2021

Posted by Dave Updegraff on February 11, 2021
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , .

Happy Thursday!

I wasn’t happy with my image of the deer I posted last week.  So yesterday I decided to go back where I found the deer and see if I could get some better images.  Please remember you can click on any of the images to reveal a much larger and more detailed image.

This time I stopped about a mile before reaching the area where they were and got my camera and long lens all set up.  Then I drove with the camera in my lap, with the window down and hoping I would see them again.

Sure enough they were in the same vicinity and looking for food.  I drove very slow and when I stopped to take the pictures they started to leave.  Still I was happy with the results.  I won’t bother them again for a while.

Enjoy your day and be careful.

Thursday ~ February 04, 2021

Posted by Dave Updegraff on February 4, 2021
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , .

Happy Thursday (Blizzard)!

I had lunch with some great Friends yesterday at Thunder Hills and on the way home I decided to take the back roads in hopes of seeing some deer or other wild critters.

I drove past a large heard of deer on my left side but when I slowed down they started moving so I just kept driving until I could get to a place where I could stop and get my long lens set up.   Then I turned around and drove slowly to where I had seen the heard.  There were only two or three left and this one was the only one that was standing in the clear.  The rest were in behind the trees.

I saw a lady taking a big bag of food out to where I first saw the deer and filling up a container for them to eat.  I can’t imagine how hard the Winter is on the deer population.

The good news is I now know where to find the deer and will be better prepared next time.

Enjoy your day and be careful.

Monday ~ February 01, 2021

Posted by Dave Updegraff on February 1, 2021
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , .

Happy Monday!

I only have about 10,000 images of Canada Geese many of which I have posted over the last 10 years of writing this blog.  So I wasn’t anxious to add more geese to my inventory.  But after wandering through the country side for two days and finding nothing that inspired me to push the shutter I decided to got to one of my favorite places in Dubuque.

I had to do a fair bit of walking to get to them but found a group of Canada Geese and some Mallard Ducks enjoying the open water and sunshine.

I walked past these geese in their sleeping position.  They paid me no notice other than one raised its head just to make sure I wasn’t going to get too close to the group.

The wind was blowing pretty hard and that made the wind sting my face.  I hadn’t put on a heavy coat and didn’t anticipate being out very long so I was really cold when I got back to the truck.

Enjoy your day and be careful.

Thursday ~ January 14, 2021

Posted by Dave Updegraff on January 14, 2021
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , .

Happy Thursday!

I met a dear Friend in Manchester yesterday for lunch.  We’ve been close Friends for 43 years.  We can go a couple of years and not visit and then when we do get together it is like we talk everyday.

On the way to Manchester I saw 6 eagles sitting in trees and one on the side of the highway eating some road kill.  I was so tempted to stop but I was running a little late anyway and I knew if I stopped and tried to get set up with the long lens I was going to be a lot later so I just kept driving.  😦

I have seen this barn many times but have never had time to photograph it.  On the way home I decided to finally get some good images.  I drove up to the house to get permission but there was no one home.  I didn’t want to be wandering around their farm and have them come home so I went back to the side of the road and waded through a little snow to get this image.

As I turned around and headed for my vehicle I noticed this juvenile eagle perched on top of this pine tree.  All I had with me was my Nikon 70-200mm  f2.0 so it is not a good image by any stretch, but at least it is an eagle.  🙂

Enjoy your day and be careful. 

Monday ~ January 04, 2021

Posted by Dave Updegraff on January 4, 2021
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: .

Happy Monday!

We have had three days of foggy conditions that are referred to as hoarfrost.  (a grayish-white crystalline deposit of frozen water vapor formed in clear still weather on vegetation, fences, etc.)  I have thought about driving out into the countryside to photograph in more detail but took the lazy approach and just photographed our back yard.

When I was on the road everyday (while working) I had plenty of opportunities to photograph lots of areas in conditions like this.  But now it’s just so much easier to just poke my head out the back door and shoot some images. 🙂

That’s all for today.  Enjoy your day and be careful.

Saturday ~ December 25, 2020

Posted by Dave Updegraff on December 26, 2020
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , .

Happy Saturday!

As crazy and dysfunctional as this year has been we celebrated Christmas in an almost “normal way.”

The kids got tons of presents from their Mom and Dad, from Santa, and of course from two sets of Grand Parents.

Addie enjoyed new selection of rings, which will go with her colorful watch.

Austin waiting patiently for  his turn to open a gift.  It’s a neat tradition.  Each person opens one gift of their choice and then the next person does the same thing until we go clear around the room.  That way everyone gets to see what everyone received.

Joshua shows Julia his new iPod Santa brought him.

Gabby is always happy to show Addie how to play with her new toys.  🙂

Enjoy your day and be careful.

Friday ~ December 25, 2020

Posted by Dave Updegraff on December 25, 2020
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , .

Merry Christmas To All.

A few days ago I posted some images of the Grand-kids building a snowman and a fort.  Soon after that the warmer temperatures helped to melt most of the snow with the only thing left was the remnants of the fort that Angie, Addie, and Gabby built.

Like looking at clouds in the sky and seeing things if you use your imagination you can see a little reindeer kissing and teddy bear.  Well at least that’s what I see.

Enjoy your Holiday and be careful.

Tuesday ~ December 22, 2020

Posted by Dave Updegraff on December 22, 2020
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , .

Happy Tuesday!

As we approach the end of another year (Thank God) I was looking back at the thousands of images I have of eagles and thought it might be fun to post some of my favorite images.  You can click on all of the images to reveal a larger more detailed image.

The three images I have for today are all taken of the same eagle and in rapid burst mode.  The Nikon D4S has a very fast frame rate and the day was bright and sunny.  I used the Nikon 200-500 mm lens.

So this eagle got away with his lunch on this day.   I do remember it was very cold and was January 30th 2016.  I was at Lock & Dam 14 in LeClaire, Iowa one of my favorite places to photograph eagles.  Hope to get back there this year.

Enjoy your day and be careful.