I never tire of photographing wildlife. Be it the ubiquitous Mallard Duck or any other common critter. I enjoy watching them interact with their environment an each other. Of course what I really enjoy is photographing them.
The Ducks and Geese in this post were all photographed at the 16th Street Basin. It has not been replete with wildlife this season as it was last year. But occasionally like this past Monday there will be a few water fowl there.
I caught these ducks napping in what little sun there was Monday It was overcast most of the day, cool and windy. I guess they had nothing better to do then nap.
I have never seen a pose like this. He was rubbing his neck on his back and scratching his underside with his foot at the same time. Sort of like rubbing a circle on chest while patting your stomach. 🙂
That’s it for today. Thanks for stopping by the blog. Enjoy your day and be careful.
I spent two hours on Saturday breaking up the frozen snow and ice on our sidewalk. I even did the neighbor’s sidewalk as they must have been gone for the Thanksgiving Holiday. By Saturday afternoon the sun and 47 degree temperature took care of any remnants of the snow and ice so I didn’t get any credit for all my hard work. 🙂
I call the first image synchronized swimming and the second one synchronized sleeping. I went to the 16th Street Basin Saturday afternoon and found a couple of hundred geese and a few mallard ducks on the ice. There was another photographer also taking images. I didn’t stay long as you can only shoot so many images of geese sitting on the ice.
Nothing special about this eagle picture other than it is the first eagle of the season. He was sitting in a tree over looking the lock and dam. Lots of people around watching and photographing him. I think we are all waiting for the river to freeze over so we can get some images of eagles fishing.
I hope to spend some time at Lock and Dam #14 this year. I’ve only been there a couple of times and it’s very crowded but it has the best opportunity to capture some eagle images while they fish.
Burt Gearhart is an accomplished wildlife photographer who spends a lot of time at lock and dam #14 and he has invited me down on numerous occasions.
That’s it for today. Hope you enjoy your Monday. Thanks for stopping by the blog and be careful.
Saturday was pretty much a veg day. Jeanne came home with a bad case of Bronchitis and was pretty much under the weather Friday and Saturday. She got to feeling better yesterday and so yesterday afternoon we did our normal photo trip around town.
First stop as always was the 16th Street Basin. We had heard there were a lot of Pelicans there but we could only find 3 or 4 at most. A couple came in while we were there but certainly not what we have experienced in past years. So in anticipation of finding a body of water full of Pelicans I packed my long lens (500 mm) and the Phantom and we took off.
Before I get too much in to this story I have to tell you about the two flights I did on Saturday. The first flight I flew from the back patio (basketball court) and went over to a small pond that is located on the school grounds. It is about 750 feet away and that is the farthest I have ever flown the Phantom and still maintained video link between the Phantom and my receiver. There were two ducks in the pond and I got as close as I could but the reception wasn’t all that good so I didn’t want to put it in the pond. 🙂
The second flight was later in the afternoon when I decided to take it up and see if I could above 1,000. Actually I got to 1,320 feet. It is amazing how things look from that high. I worked most of yesterday on editing that video but lost my work two times. I’m still trying to learn the video editing program and apparently I still have a bunch to learn.
This image was grabbed from the video and it shows what the neighborhood looks like at 1,320 feet.
Okay, so back to the story of the 16th Street Basin. I shot a few images of the one Pelican that was closest to the shore and then some other wildlife that was close enough to capture and then it was time to fly the Phantom and see if I could get some overhead shots of the Basin.
We went around to the other side (away from all the power lines) and I launched the Phantom. There were two Pelicans out in the middle of the Basin and I flew pretty close to them for several minutes. Came back to where we were and made a perfect landing. No really I did it was beautiful. Went over to turn the Phantom off and realized that I had accidentally switched the GoPro camera from video to still shots. The problem is I don’t have anyway to take still shots with the GoPro when it’s in the air. So all that flying was for nothing.
Well, I reset the camera and took it up again. I got pretty close to a gull and a Pelican and had some fun tracking the Pelican. I know I made him a little nervous but I didn’t stress him very long. Good thing I decided to come back when I did because I was running on fumes (battery wise) as I came in for a landing there was a gust of wind and with the battery so low the controls did not respond as they normally do so I crashed. Yep, it’s on the video. My good fortune I crashed into some soft grass so no damage to the Phantom or the camera. 🙂
I do not know what this duck is and I didn’t have time to look him up. If you know please post in the comments.
The video below is only a little over 5 minutes. Some good music and I think you’ll like the Pelican and Gull. That’s it for today. Hope you enjoy your day. Thanks for stopping by and be careful.
No photography yesterday. Straight to work and straight home. There were lots of geese at the Duck Pond but having taken over 2,000 images of birds over the weekend (over half of which I have not yet looked at), I didn’t see any point to adding another bunch. 🙂
I will tell you that today’s post is all about the Blue Heron. If you have a squeamish stomach or do not like to see wildlife at its true reality then you probably shouldn’t go any further. Just enjoy the nice image above and then hit the back button. Okay perhaps I’m being a little melodramatic but some people don’t like to see one species eat another species.
At one point Sunday afternoon there were about a dozen Blue Heron standing around the edge of the ice sticking their head in the water and coming out with a fish. Not much work and no walking around or being stealthy. Just poked their head in the water and bamn another fish. I watched this Heron devour three fish in less than ten minutes. The last fish he caught and ate was three times the size of this one.
It was so much fun. I’d be concentrating on one event and Jeanne would be telling me about another group of birds doing something. At one point a couple of these Herons tried walking on the ice and it was hysterical. They were like drunken sailors. Their long legs were go out from under them in different directions and they would try to balance themselves with their big wings. I have some images of that I’ll share at another time.
Finally the last bite and the next frame the fish was gone. After awhile I decided to put the Phantom in the air and see if I could get some up close and personal images or video of some the birds. There are a lot (I mean a lot) of power lines around the Basin. I first had to find a place where I could take off and gain some altitude to clear the wires.
The video below is very short. It’s a terrible video. There was too much wind to fly and I could see where I was flying. At one point I got very close to the ice and thought I was filming an eagle but when I went to edit the video I discovered I had my camera pointed straight down at the ice. About the only thing this video is good for is to show those folks who have not see the Basin some of the make up of it.
No music with this video. It basically sucks but again if you don’t know what the Basin is it will at least show you what it looks like. That and it’s only a little over two minutes.
That’s it for today. Hope you enjoy the wildlife images. Lots more to share.
Thanks for stopping by. Enjoy your day and be careful.
What a great weekend! I shot just under 2,000 images Saturday and Sunday and most of those images were shot at the 16th Street Basin. As a reader of this blog I do hope you enjoy wildlife images especially eagles, herons, gulls, and ducks, oh my! Cause that’s what I have to show you over the next week or so.
I cannot begin to tell you how much fun Jeanne and I had both days watching the interaction of all the birds at the Basin. At one time yesterday evening there were gulls, herons, and a half-dozen or more eagles circling the basin. I’m surprised there are any fish left in the Basin. The Herons were having a field day as were the gulls. The eagles spent most of their time eating the fish the gulls dropped.
I even took the Phantom Vision 2 with me today and even though it was cold and windy I did get it in the air and out over the Basin. I couldn’t see the iPhone well enough to see exactly which was the camera was pointing (I’m working on a solution for that.) so I got pretty close to an eagle sitting on the ice. Trouble is the damn camera was pointed straight down at the ice so you don’t see the eagle. I was testing to see how close I could get to him before he got upset. He tolerated it very well. I’ll show you the video later in the week. There were some good parts to it.
Jeanne was funny as both days there were other people at the Basin and they were in “our parking spot”, as she put it and she was miffed that they were there. These two days are the first time we have seen anyone at the place where we park. Lots of people and cameras pointed at the pond.
So if you enjoy birds, fighting, sharing, hunting, and flying then you should enjoy the blog this week. If you’re not a big fan of that then I’ll try to mix in some other images as the week unfolds. But with 2,000 shots it’s going to be hard to show you anything but birds. 🙂
That’s it for today. Remember drink responsibly today! 🙂
Enjoy your day. Thanks for stopping by the blog and be careful.
What a fun weekend. I could get use to this being off! Yesterday Jeanne and I went for our normal Sunday photo drive and the first place we wanted to go was the 16th Street Basin.
Jeanne saw him first but even from a distance you could tell it was a lone Great Blue Heron. They are so skittish we knew we had to be stealthy. So I drove only about 5 mph on the wrong side of the road so that he wouldn’t be bothered by us. Once I got past him I got the camera set up. I shot these images with the Nikon D4 | Sigma 50 – 500 mm VR lens | ISO 400 1/1250 sec @ f8.0.
When we got turned around and drove back, as soon as I stopped the car he gave me this pose and I knew that it meant he was ready to depart the area. So I just started firing off the camera, figuring that none of the shots would be in focus but hoping I would get one out of the group that was usable. I was really pleased with this one.
I got very lucky on this series of shots and the camera and lens performed beautifully. Remember you can click on the image and see a larger version of the image.
We then went down to the river and visited our favorite little park. There wasn’t much going on there so we decided to take a look at the lock and dam. Much to our surprise there were 4 – 6 eagles flying. I never got a killer shot of one as they were more on the Wisconsin side of the dam but I did get some decent shots of eagles as a couple of them got close to my lens.
So between Saturday and Sunday I got a lot of wildlife shots. Eagles, Herons, Ducks, and yes Betty, some Geese. 🙂
If you like wildlife shots you should enjoy the posts this week. If not, well I’m sorry because for the most part that’s all I have so far. Of course, now with Daylight Savings Time in effect I have shooting opportunities every evening after work. This evening some of my friends from work asked me to fly the Phantom again so I am going to take it with me and if the weather conditions permit I’ll have some video later in the week.
I did take the Phantom with me yesterday in hopes of flying it over the Basin, but the wind was just too high and with my limited flight experience I was unwilling to risk it. Probably a smart thing. Well actually Jeanne said no. 🙂
That’s it for today. I hope you enjoy your day. Thanks for stopping by and be careful.
Thank God It’s Finally Monday. Okay, yes that’s a bit of stretch. While I love the work that I do, I also enjoy wearing tee shirts, jeans, and doing my own thing. I probably need the structure of my day job to keep me semi productive. 🙂
Sunday, late afternoon, as is our custom, Jeanne and I took a photo drive. Saturday I had seen some Great Egrets at the 16th Street Basin but didn’t have a long enough lens with me to capture any decent images. We arrived at the Basin around 5:45 p.m. just in time to capture the setting sun light on the pond. There were several Egrets on the South side of the Basin and I was able to slowly move the car into a good shooting position.
They actually seemed quite comfortable with my position and one of them walked back and forth (fishing) about 50 yards away for a long time, so I had a great shooting distance. I racked off 600 shots over a period of about 20 minutes. About 2/3 of those were soft because I had forgotten to adjust the Vibration Reduction switch on the 80 – 400 mm lens. The last time I had shot with that lens I had used a tripod. 😦 So I deleted over 400 shots of shots that were not sharp. Truth of the matter is of course I don’t think I need 400 images of the same Egret walking back and forth. 🙂
We then drove down to the little park just off the River Road. We enjoy going there as there are usually a lot of gulls around and sometimes other kinds of wildlife. This day there was a man on a motorcycle was feeding the gulls and they were plentiful. Flying all around him trying to get some of the bounty he was dispersing. The shot above is not cropped at all. In fact I took it at the 200 mm focal length and still couldn’t get the entire gull in the frame.
I hope you had a great weekend. Enjoy your Monday and as always thanks for stopping by the blog. Be careful.
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