a deer near the Carlos Avery headquarters -- about 7 a.m.

Pool 10

A 180 degree view of Pool 10. (I had to try my new fish-eye lens for the Coolpix 995)

a view of Pool 9 facing the morning sun

I'm going to leave you with this picture of a Turkey Vulture soaring the thermals very high above Carlos Avery. My next series of posts will be of bird pictures shot this morning.

Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area

The roads within Carlos Avery were opened last Friday; tomorrow is my day to head out there. Maybe I'll see you.

another Osprey nest

Buzz Graves recently reported in the Minnesota Ornithological Union e-mail group an Osprey nest not too far from me, near the intersection of Co. Rd. J & I-35E. This morning I drove by the site to see whether it was in a location easy to photograph. I only had my Coolpix 995 with me so the picture on the left is all you get. I do think a 400mm lens, perhaps with a 1.4x teleconverter, would result in some interesting shots. It does seem like the best location is at the parking lot on the south side of Co. Rd. J, opposite the platform which is on the north of J. I haven't used this feature of Google maps, but I'm going to try to give you a link to a map I created. click here

Quik Pod

Do you ever wish you could hold your camera higher above your head or further away from yourself? Quik Pod provides a solution. There is also a review in the NY Times. I wish I would have had one of these when I was shooting the picture on the right last summer. I was standing on the roof of my car to get above the reeds that had grown around the pond.

tripod leg covers

In my April 13th post about going to Spring- brook on a chilly morn- ing, I was com- plaining about how cold my hands got from carrying my tripod; in addition, the next morning, my left shoulder was sore from carrying the tripod with my camera attached for over 5 hours. I figured both problems could be solved with soft covers for the top of each tripod leg. Unfortunately, such covers are rather expensive. Art Morris sells come for about $50; others I've seen are in the same price range. Therefore, I decided to try some foam pipe insulation. I found it at Beisswenger's Hardware in New Brighton, MN. For about $5 I got a package of the stuff enough for 3 tripods or more. The insulation was for 1" pipe; although the tripod legs are about 1.25", it seemed to fit OK. The foam is soft, so it should be easy on my shoulder. The only thing I don't know is how durable it will be in the field; but the stuff is so cheap, it shouldn't matter.

Hummingbirds

Get your feeders ready; the Hummingbirds have arrived in Wisconsin & Iowa.

Springbrook Nature Center

I worked long hours Wednesday & Thursday to make sure I could get out to Springbrook today for my second visit of the year. I was sure I would see many more birds and was not disappointed.
I have a tendency to take along too much equipment which becomes heavy and cumbersome after a few hours in the field. So this morning I followed my friend, Jim's advice and took only my Canon 20D, a 400mm lens with a 1.4x teleconverter attached, Gitzo tripod, and my Nikon Coolpix 995.
When the warblers start arriving, I will probably switch to the 300mm lens which has image stabilization and is much easier to handhold than the 400mm.
Since it has been a long winter, I knew I would probably shoot everything in sight; you will see that I was right. I hope you won't be bored, but rather, encouraged to go out more often and take your own pictures. It is a most relaxing and fascinating pastime.

This Hooded Merganser pair and goose were my first bird encounter of the morning.

This American Coot fascinated me because of the early, yellow-gold morning light reflecting off the beige, withered reeds at the water's edge.

It was nearing 8 a.m., yet below freezing. I kept switching hands on my metal tripod since I didn't think to wear gloves. Note the frost on the branches by the Song Sparrow. It was apparently too cold to sing. I heard more of them, however, later in the morning when I ran into Kevin Krueger.
Kevin, and his wife, Linda, are both avid bird photographers, as you can see from their web site, Flight of Nature, which has been recently revamped. Take a look!

One nice thing about Springbrook is that there are many benches. By this time I was tired of walking and lugging my camera + tripod. As I sat I kept hearing a bird call that was not familiar to me. After about 10 minutes I would have been ready to move on, except the call persisted, seeming to get louder and louder. Finally, I spotted this female Red-headed Woodpecker hiding behind a broken-off branch. After I took this picture, she flew off. Yet the call was still there sounding more and more urgent. What was it?

After listening and searching for many minutes, I finally spotted this little red blob popping out of a hole. Mystery solved!

Mom is back.

The ever-present Cardinals were brighter red than ever.

About 9 a.m. I was accosted by a pair of Chickadees; I've never had them fly so close to me -- within a few feet of my face, then landing on the twigs or branches nearest me. Unfortunately I couldn't take any pictures of them with my main camera; the 400mm lens on it focuses only as close as 10 feet. However, to the left is a picture of one of them that I took with my Nikon Coolpix 995, which I always try to have with me. A neat experience! Let's see if they're as friendly next time; I think I'll take some sunflower seeds with me.

Another extremely friendly bird was this American Robin; it kept exploring a small tree right at the close focus limit of my lens so I couldn't resist taking this shot. Keep in mind that the lens on my camera was a 400mm telephoto with a 1.4x converter; taking into account the 1.6x factor on the sensor of the Canon 20D, I was shooting this bird at 10 feet with the equivalent of a 900mm lens on a 35mm film camera.

American Goldfinch
I warned you that I was shooting everything in sight -- even the most common birds.

Blue-winged Teal pair

It was after 11 a.m. & I was near the end of my walk; time to head home. My last stop was for the Red-winged Blackbirds. They're always raucous and never boring. A few of the females have arrived so the males are louder and more aggressive then ever.
It is difficult to get good pictures of them with any detail since if you expose for the black at all, the other colors tend to wash out -- but full sunlight seems to help by creating reflections off the feathers.

I don't care what you say, I'll be back next week.
It was a good day!

more on sensor cleaning

Last Tuesday I wrote a short post about the problem of dust on the sensors of digital single-lens reflex cameras. A recent solution on the market is a rather expensive "scope" with which you can examine the sensor. You can read about it on the Luminous Landscape site. My conclusion: I'll defer spending the money for the time being and work with more traditional methods for now.

melting snow

This morning there was a herd (more than a bunch, less than a flock) of Juncos under my feeders when I got up. A light blanket of snow from last night covered the driveway. By the time I had made coffee, the snow was melting from the morning sun and the driveway was almost clear.
Work kept me from going birding on this nice, sunny day until the late afternoon. By the time I got to Wargo, it was too late to go in (they close at 4:30 p.m. most weekdays) so all I could do was to check out the Osprey platform I had been watching (see below).
If tomorrow is sunny, I'll probably head to Springbrook Nature Center and see what's new there.

Osprey nest

Last Saturday I posted the picture on the left (this is a cropped image) of an Osprey platform at the Wargo Nature Center, noting that it seemed like there were more twigs and branches than I had observed earlier. Today I returned and waited for about 20 minutes -- no Ospreys. Again it seemed like there were more sticks on the nest. However, when I got home and compared the above picture (taken with my Canon 20D rather than the Coolpix 995) to the one from Saturday, it appeared that the platform looks the same. Apparently there is no activity on it yet.

snow again . . . and again . . . and

"Keep those seeds coming!"

sensor cleaning

One of the advantages of using a digital single-lens reflex is the ability to change lenses at will. This happens to be also one of the DSLR's disadvantages, i.e., whenever you change a lens, you create an opening for dust & dirt to get into your camera and eventually upon the sensor. Since the sensor on my Canon 20D needs cleaning right now (which I've been putting off; it only shows up if you aim your camera at the sky or other even background with the lens stopped down) I've been doing a lot of reading on the subject. So many new cleaning tools have been introduced to the market in the last year or so.
One good analysis of the problem and how to tackle it is in this article. In the meanwhile I'll be using the Lens Pen I just bought from Art Morris. I'll let you know how it work and keep you posted on other possibilities as well.

spoiled Downy

It was only after I started processing and enlarging this image of a female Downy Woodpecker that I noticed she was sticking out her tongue. (see enlargement below)
Do you suppose it was at me?

Easter brunch

Osprey nest

This afternoon I attended an 80th birthday party (not mine) at the Lino Lakes Senior Center. Since it is very close to the Wargo Nature Center, after the party I decided to check out Wargo -- specifically the Osprey nesting platform. I had been there about a week ago and noticed a few sticks in the platform. Today there seemed to be some more, but no sign of the Ospreys. On the way in I came across this deer; but since I had only my Coolpix 995 along, the picture doesn't have much detail due to the cropping I had to do.

Global warming in our back yard?

My thermometer is barely above the 20 degree mark; it's noon! We may set a new record low for a high temp. on this date. So, are we being affected by global warming?
Two professors at the U of M Duluth have released a study showing that surface temperatures on Lake Superior have increased about 4.5 degrees since 1979.
How will this affect our popular lake and its bird life? The study doesn't make any predictions, but this continued, rapid warming is bound to result in changes.
You can read an article about the study in the Star Tribune. You may also want to check Prof. Jay Austin's web site, particularly the temperature page.
That's our grandson, Alex, sitting by the Lake at Bob's Cabins last summer.

Good morning

Thursday

"It's cold out this morning!"

Lake Superior

Kristine sent me this picture of Lake Superior by Duluth taken this evening -- note the size of those swells! While we got a mere dusting of snow in the northern suburbs of Minneapolis, Duluth was hit by more than 11" of the white stuff. I think I will wait a week or so before heading up there for birding. I'm already too used to spring.

Hummingbirds

To the South-east of us, Hummingbirds have been sighted just south of Wisconsin; however, looking South, they haven't reached Iowa yet.

early morning

We didn't get much snow yesterday; early this morning there was just a light dusting. There was some life at the feeders though -- Cardinals, House Finches, Chickadees, and a travelin'-thru Dark-eyed Junco (haven't seen them for a while).

Ann Cook

Whenever I get impatient with my camera equipment, wishing for larger, more expensive telephoto lenses -- whenever, I wish I could travel far and wide, even within the U.S. to capture shots of exciting, new birds -- whenever I think I've taken a really good photo that could compete with the best out there -- I try to remember to go to Ann Cook's digiscoping web site.
For those not familiar with digiscoping, it is the taking of photographs with a digital camera (usually a modestly priced, simple model) attached to a spotting scope (which is the equivalent of a very large telephoto lens).
The advantage of digiscoping is cost. Granted Ann uses a Swarovski scope which costs about $2,000. However, her camera is a long-discontinued Nikon Coolpix 990 very similar to my 995 with which I took the recent photos at the Springbrook Nature Center; it can be bought on eBay for less than $150. I use mine mostly for background scenery photos. Add the cost of a scope eye-piece and tripod and you're still under $2,500. The Canon 500mm lens I covet is well over $5,000. A professional Canon DSLR body is easily another $5,000.
The disadvantage is that the spotting scope is the equivalent of a very slow telephoto requiring slow shutter speeds -- difficult to use, particularly with smaller birds that like to keep moving. Another problem is that of vibration. It is hard to eliminate it when you are using the equivalent of a 1000mm - 2000mm lens. Finally, at a magnification of 20x to 40x, it can be impossible to find your target, especially if it is moving. Ann Cook has obviously overcome these obstacles.
Do you think you have to go far and wide to get good bird pix? Ann says she rarely travels more than an hour's drive from her home in Manitoba.
So what kind of results does she get? I could easily run out of adjectives. Take a look for yourself.
To learn more about digiscoping, check out, Digibird, Digisco, Digiscoping Birds, and Digiscoped.

There was too much other stuff to do today so I had to satisfy myself with a little out-of-window picture taking in my back yard. (Yes, I know the saying: "If you are too busy to go birding, you are too busy.") Other than a Blue Jay, some Chickadees, Robins, and Geese flying overhead, this Downy Woodpecker was willing to pose for a little while. If the promised snow comes overnight, I suspect my feeders will be busy again.

This crow was busy gathering sticks. Several times it looked like he was breaking twigs off branches to add to his stash.

live trapping

After yesterday's post, Jim appears to be concerned that live trapping be accurately described. Hence the following comments that I received today:

Didn't anticipate the pix of the red squirrel in the trap being offered to your 'blog'ites' but this does serve a reasonable and humane purpose by making others aware that doing something like this as a control option is fairly simple and would seem to save both the wildlife and the environment from some of the more inhumane options you or they might have been considering. (Though I'm also sure that the DNR has rather insular views on all such practices and I'm in no way certain this option is even legal. I am fairly certain the squirrels will concur on preferring this alternative, however.) Hence at my own legal risk, two additional pix are being included with this email if only to show that I'm an equal opportunity squirrel exporter from my wooded yard prior to the Spring bird migration. One ultimately has to take sides on these things and act on their own.

Also thought I should mention that these traps are simple and cheap, but have to be closely monitored if one wishes to do something like this humanely. Squirrels are pretty high strung little animals and will literally knock their heads against the sides and corners of the trap to the point of doing serious damage to themselves. If left alone in such captivity they will destroy themselves long before they might eventually starve. Regrettably there is more than one way to be cruel.

From my own experience, I'd recommend that one first observe their own squirrel's local habits so you know when it is likely that you will catch them. Then, after setting the trap, you should check it at least every 15 minutes or so. They are pretty cagey little creatures and you have to be at least as smart as they are to gain the upper hand. Then, once they are inside the trap you can handle them quite safely and they seem to actually like riding around in cars, which seems to make them quiet down in a state of wonder. To release the animal, the trap pictured (built by the 'HaveaHeart' company and costing around $20 at Fleet Farm and the main 'Great White Hunter' outlets) allows the user to stay completely behind the front opening and easily lift the door. The squirrel catches on to any opportunity to escape pretty quickly and disappears in a flash, especially if you let it go nearby a grove of trees... red squirrels preferring evergreens and their larger gray cousins leaning more toward large deciduous trunks they can instantly hide behind.

red squirrels

My friend, Jim, has a lot of patience; he live-traps the red squirrels that take over his yard & bird feeders and transports them over to Wisconsin, I think. Last year, when I battled one for the whole summer, I was planning much more drastic measures. Fortunately for the squirrel, and probably me, the squirrels disappeared. Now I have only the relatively calm, mild-mannered, gray ones.
These are two pictures Jim sent me today.