Wednesday ~ May 18, 2022

Posted by Dave Updegraff on May 18, 2022
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , .

Happy (Hump Day) Wednesday!

I am not, by any stretch of the imagination. a “Wildlife Photographer.”  I do not study the various species, nor learn their nesting, breeding, eating habits, or their migration time.  Much of the time when I photograph a bird (like the one above) I have no idea what they are called.  I just love photographing and watching all kinds of wildlife.

So after spending about 15 minutes on the internet I “think” this bird is a Pectoral Sandpiper.  But it could just as well be a rooster for all I know.  Point is that for me and I’m only speaking for me, I just like to take photographs period.

Remember you can click on the images to make them large and far more detailed.

Now I do know that this is a pair of Canada Geese.  So I’m not totally oblivious to the species.  I did however use to call more than one goose Canadian Geese, which is wrong and it was pointed out to me in very specific terms.  🙂

For over 20 years I have enjoyed photographing all types of wildlife at the “Duck Pond” including all sorts of geese, pelicans, swans, herons, egrets, eagles, ducks, and assorted smaller birds.

I call it the Duck Pond because several of the locals in Maquoketa refer to it as such.  It is really the Hurstville Marsh / Wetlands.  It is located by the Hurstville Interpretive Center and is normally filled with lots of water.  However at the above image reveals the water levels are very low right now.

Here is a drone video that I shot a few years ago that will give you an idea how big the Marsh is.  Oh and by the way if you watch the full video you will also see that I crashed the drone.  😦

I’m not sure what this bird is.  He is much smaller than the first bird in this post and much quicker.  I probably took a hundred images at burst rate trying to capture this little guy in focus.

Finally this image of what I think are tadpoles.  But I’m really not sure.  What I do know is that there were thousands of these things swimming by my spot the 30 minutes I was there.  So what ever they are there is going to be a whole bunch of soon. 🙂

That’s it for today.  Hope to photograph some more stuff in the coming days.

Enjoy the rest of your day and be careful.

5 comments on “Wednesday ~ May 18, 2022”

  3. The larger bird might be some kind of Godwit – either Hudsonian or Marbled. My book says the Hudsonian Godwit migrates through the plains states. Interesting bird!

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  4. Hi Dave,

    Nice images, thanks for sharing.

    You might like the videos that start at this site: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j59sn0v9OWg

    This is Day one of five day of video of the hauling of an experimental Caterpillar D-11xe tractor from Peoria to Las Vegas for MINExpo last September at the LV Convention Center – a once every four years mining equipment show, the largest in the world! Have been at the last four of these. These videos were shot and edited by a friend of mine, Charlie Zimmerman, on contract with CAT. Charlie is a retired CAT Global Mining PR person of 30 years and now free lances. He and his wife ran along with the heavy haulers, three trucks, this one at a permitted load of 240,000 pounds and two others with the tracks on one and the dozer, ripper, and roll over cage on it. When the Day one video ends, click on the next day icon and you can progress through the following four days’ videos. Hope you enjoy! He had GoPros mounted in a variety of places as well as two or three cameras he was using from the van that CAT rented for them to drive along with the heavy hauler.

    Hope all is well, CDE

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