GGO, Bambi, Northern Pygmy (20140614) A GREAT Saturday morning

Jamie had let me know that he had spied a GGO on one of our old relaiable roads, as it has been a long time since we spent time with one of these great birds. The early morning dampness was setting us up for a nice "dustfree" day. On our very first side road we grabbed an image or two of this, our first of the day.

The morning mist really set the mood for this shot. I told Jamie we would go into the end of the road and come back out, perhaps this unit would make his way a little closer to the road. Just up the road and around the corner we found our first young deer of the year. There were actually two fawns with this doe, but we were not quick enough to grab a shot of them in the open. If you check under mom's belly you will see the tell tale white rump of a Muley.

The lush colour of the early summer growth everywhere had our spirits at the top of the world. What a great place we live in! As we returned to our initial "owl area" we found our target sitting on the fence beside the road. The blood on his beak leads me to believe he had been having some success looking for breakfast.

I had left my 2.0 TC at home, so I was working with ust my 1.4, even so in order for me to get both the owl and Jamie in this shot I had to back up about 60 or 75 yards. You can see a little of the still hanging on morning "mist".

Leaving this huntr where he was we headed of insearch of more targets. we didn't go very far before we were able to find this singing Western Meadowlark.

Our second GGO of the morning was on one of my favourite roads. We almost missed it, but just caught it out of the corner of our eye. We watched as this bird was about 40 yards away and hunting. Here it is with a little breakfast.

Here is our third GGO of the morning. He was hunting hard, and this stare is indicative of a bird looking for food.  I know that this seems like a lot of owl shots, but I will be doing a supplemental post just to show you more images that these great predators allowed us.

Our next encounter was a long distance Sandhill Crane. No images of that bird, but We did see another pair of cranes, so a shot is on the way.  We were out chasing a singing Rosebreasted Grosbeak when I spied this little unit pop up into a nearby tree. It was a pretty dark environment, but the bird allowed us to get into some better light for an image or two.

No question that this is my best Northern Pygmy portrait to date.  After the Pygmy vacated the area we were able to track down the singing Rosebreasted.

As promised here is a Sandhill Crane shot. We were able to find the mate as well.

As we were leaving I spotted a pair of Grey Catbirds pop into the bush. So we were back out of the truck and hunting down our quarry. He popped out and started singing.

That was our last subject of the morning as I had an appointment in town and we headed out.It was just FABULOUS day with a super guy. I hope you too had a chance to get out and see some wildlife.
Turbo