Back to wildlife images for you today. I’m still working on the portraits but I went out yesterday afternoon looking to see what I could see and finally ended up at a popular fishing lake. These ducks caught my eye as I drove by so I turned around and decided that since my memory card was empty I would practice on them.
It was fun photographing these guys as they paid no attention to me and in fact came pretty close. At one point I had to go from 600 mm to 400 mm to get all the duck in the frame. Also unlike most of the wildlife I have photographed I didn’t have to make any butt shots because they walked toward me more than away from me.
I have to throw in an image of this Blue Heron. I did visit the Basin yesterday and he was the only critter present when I was there. The Basin has really been busy the last few times I’ve been there but yesterday it was more or less abandoned except for this guy.
I’ll leave you with this little Duck. He was very curious about me and the way he and his buddies were constantly walking by me gave me the idea that probably many of the fisherman’s children feed them, so they were looking for a handout. Unfortunately I didn’t have anything for them. I’ll have to remember to take some bread with me the next time I wander over to the lake.
That’s it for today. Thanks for stopping by. Enjoy your day and be careful.
I have some images from the “Duck Pond” for you today that I took last Friday. I was on my way out of town after photographing the human checker game and saw some activity at the pond. I cannot pass up an opportunity to capture images of wildlife even if the lighting isn’t perfect.
Mother Duck was taking her new brood out for a walk. When she noticed me they all scurried to her side and she promptly escorted them back into the tall grass.
There have been a couple of Blue Herons at the pond this last week. They stay pretty close to the inland shore line and they are difficult to photograph. I only had my 80 – 400 mm lens so it’s not a tight shot but he was walking very slowly up the waterline looking for something to eat.
Something startled him and in an instant he was flying away. I don’t think it was me because I had been stationary for some time waiting for him to walk pass my vantage point. He didn’t seem to mind my occasional shutter press.
Sometimes they don’t seem to mind being close to humans. I have been able to get within a few feet of them and they pay no attention to me. Other times a mere movement of your body and they are off.
That’s it for today. As a teaser I may or may not have a great adventure story for you tomorrow. It just depends on how today turns out. 🙂
Thanks for stopping by the blog. Enjoy your day and be careful.
I have a story for you today that has nothing to do with the above image. Well it sort of does but it will be hard to connect the dots without an explanation.
Tuesday I had lunch with my good friend Steve at one of the local restaurants in Maquoketa. We still had 15 minutes left on our lunch break so I took the long way back and went past the duck pond. If you’ve followed this blog for any period of time you know there are several mounds surrounded by water at the duck pond to protect the eggs and young wildlife from predictors.
On one of the mounds a pair of Canadian Geese have built a nest and the female goose has sat on the nest for a several days. When we went by the pond the two (much larger) swans were busily building a nest very close to the goose nest and in fact they had stolen material from that nest to build their own. Two eggs were strewn about the area and the two geese were standing off to the side looking at the swans in bewilderment.
This was an image I had to capture so I headed back to the office to grab my camera. I got detained with a couple of issues that I had to take care of first and by the time I got back to the pond it was about 30 minutes later. The swans were gone, the geese had put some of their nest back together and the female was back on the nest. The problem was the eggs were still laying on the ground and not in the nest.
Yesterday on my lunch break I went by the pond hoping to find some images, I saw the lone female goose was again on the nest and I couldn’t see any eggs. It was cold (38 degrees), cloudy, and there wasn’t anything going on at the duck pond so I grabbed a sandwich and went to a place that I have seen a lot of smaller bird activity, called Horseshoe Pond.
I had positioned my car so I had a good shooting angle at the pond and could capture some of the area where there was a lot of bird activity. After a few minutes a beautiful male cardinal and then shortly there after a female cardinal showed up and were pecking at the ground. They were getting close to my camera when another vehicle pulled up and a guy with two overweight terriers got out.
Of course the two dogs tore out after the cardinals and when they flew away they came over to my car and started yapping at me. And that is the reason why I’m showing you the windmill. 🙂
Thanks for stopping by the blog. Enjoy your day 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.
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.
I know I said no more birds on my next post. I did go out Saturday with the intention of finding something besides wildlife to shoot. I just didn’t see anything that caught my interest. I was on my way back to the ranch when I came across these guys and as you can see by the light there wasn’t much time left to shoot.
I had to bump the ISO up to 800 to capture these guys at a decent shutter speed and they are still a little soft for my taste.
I went up around Sherrill and Ball Town but there just wasn’t anything that caught my eye. There were a couple of combines out but they were in the shade and they just didn’t look good.
I did find a very strange-looking bird sitting on a power line and I shot about 20 shots of it. None of them came out worth a darn he was just a black fuzzy blob against a blue sky. Too bad I didn’t have a flash with me. I also saw some deer but they too were in the shadows and didn’t lend themselves to making an image. I tried to get a different angle on them but by the time I (stealthily) got to where I thought I could shoot they took off. I guess at my height and weight I’m not very stealthy. 🙂
So that’s it for today. Not a very good post nor good images but it’s all I have for today. Thanks for stopping by and be careful.
As we often do on a Sunday afternoons, Jeanne and I took a drive around the area looking for things to shoot. I always like to check out the 16th Street Basin but again, on Sunday like it has been so far this year, there was nothing going on. Two ducks were swimming in the lower corner (the only open water.) so we moved on to the river. There were eagles flying over the dam and some in trees but there were also fishermen in boats just below the dam so the eagles were not interested in getting close to them.
We then went over to the ice harbor and found the ducks. Last year they were at the 16th Street Basin in great numbers. The year before they spent most of their time on the 14th Street stream. I love to watch the ducks play and interact with each other. Since we couldn’t find them this year at their usual digs I thought perhaps they have moved on. I’m glad to see they are still around.
We took a drive over to the Sinsinawa Mound area. I haven’t been there this year and thought perhaps we could find something interesting. We did find this old rake sitting at the end of a barren field. It would have been nice if there had been some clouds in the background. Yes I could have added them in post production but didn’t even think of that. 🙂
There just wasn’t anything that caught my eye even though we drove about 40 miles total. Lots of barns but none in good light or they had metal roofs. Jeanne doesn’t like barns with metal roofs so I have crossed them off my list. We found some barns with high stone foundations and weathered siding but the light wasn’t good or the barn had a metal roof.
Back in Dubuque we drove down some of the back streets by the river. I have never shot the Julian Dubuque Bridge from this angle. I really liked how the evening sun was bathing it in light. We stopped at a gas station before heading home. My car has a 16 gallon tank and I put 15.74 gallons in it. We were running on fumes. 🙂
There you have it. Three unrelated images with no theme just what we found on a Sunday afternoon drive in Eastern Iowa, Western Wisconsin and Illinois. Thanks for stopping by. Enjoy your day, more snow coming so be careful.
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