Shrikes! Larks! and Killdeer

What a great morning! Picked up a 200-400 F4 zoom at the last minute last night due to the holiday weekend, you get three days for the price of one, beauty!  A little late getting out of the house with no plan, but hey there is stuff everywhere and with spring here more coming all the time. Highlights of the day were shrikes to be certain, 5 or 6 different birds.  Here is a shot of a Horned Lark taken with my trusty back up D80 and the 70-300:

Did I mention that there were Shrikes?

The morning was quite chilly -8C so there was this incredible hoar frost. The rush was trying to find the birds with the frost still around, because it was warming up fast. Here is my Fist Western Meadowlark of the year, what a beautiful vocal performance!

I actually found the Lark when I was trying to get my first shots of this Redwinged Blackbird.

When I got out of the truck to get the Blackbird, and before I saw the Meadowlark, this pair of Killdeer popped up and decided to provide a photo opp. These birds are usually much more difficult to get close to, spring is definitely in the air!

There was a schwack of other birds out today as well; 1000's of starlings, Redwing Blackbirds, Robins, Redtail hawks, a couple of Northern Harriers, Roughies, and a pair of Prairie Falcons. So for an unplanned outing a lot of opportunity. Happy Easter everyone!

Turbo

Return to Jamie's country

After last trip was complete waste of time ;) I decided to head back up to see if we could find Anything worth shooting in Jamie's territory. Things started off great with this immature Roughie. We met up with Glenn from my Sunday morning group and we headed off to find the mysterious, but now famous Cochrane Northern Hawk Owls. And seeing as I am in equal opportunity supporter, I thought it only fitting I give you a shot of Mom in the nest.

Of course, Pop's standing guard and feeding mom, needs to be recognized as well.

After leaving the Owls, Glenn spotted a pair of Bluebirds and we turned around and grabbed a couple of quick shots. I have always like the muted tones of the female. There will be plenty more of these birds coming in then next 4-6 weeks.

After the Bluebirds, we were onward to the herd of elk I had spotted prior to our turning around, There looked to be 50-60 head of elk with 20-25 whitetails sharing the evening meal.

After parting ways with Glenn, we headed back to town, but not before we managed to bag one more specie of ungulate.

We managed to snap these two and another bull calf before it got dark.
Sheesh it really is too bad there is nothing up in the North East to go looking.
We also saw redtails (6) Roughies(12-15), robins, and another Northern Shrike. A great evening tour to say the least.

Turbo

Final Sunday winter walk

This week was our final Sunday "winter" walk. I knew it was time as there are signs of Spring everywhere.  Before even getting to the designated meeting spot I managed this Redtail hawk shot:

We had a great walk with Gulls of several descriptions, another Redtail, Bald Eagle, flickers galore.
As we were headed back to the start someone spotted this Northern Shrike, I had to do a little hiking to get closer to it, but it hung around long enough for me to grab a couple of shots.

That wraps up the winter walks, and Spring start next week, I'm certain everyone will be sick of birds by the time June rolls around:)

Have a Great Week,
Turbo

Evening Tour

Picked Deb's uncle up, we haven't been out much this year so I thought I would drag him along. He is a waterbird guy, but endures my search for mammals. We left town at 5:45 p.m. I was hoping to get to show him some Bluebirds as he has an appreciation for their beauty.  Redtail hawks numbered in the 8-10 range, herd of Elk of about 100, 30-60 deer. We probably found 6-8 Bluebirds, but no acceptable photo's, one mature bald eagle.  I did manage to snap this shot of a Northern Shrike:

After finding our designated moose, we also spotted two more on the way home. The light is poor, but I was shocked to see that this fella still had one of his antlers. This is the last day of March, unbelieveable!

I apologize for the poor quality, but it was getting late. We were quite disappointed that there were limited water birds around. He was hoping to see some mallards, and I was hoping to find a Red Winged Blackbird--true harbingers of spring:)
Some sort of bird hit the truck on the way home, I think it might have been a Snipe. A fair size and it bent my truck antenae.  Tomorrow is the the Sunday morning walk. Will report the results!

Turbo

Killing time

I was drag ass getting out of bed this morning, and debated going into the Camera Store to buy a new 300mm F4.0 lens, I decided against it.  I will wait until there is one available with VR. So when I finally got out of my funk and headed down to FCPP it was 11:30 like, late. But I did okay, I got my first butterfly of the year, I found out it is a Morning Cloak.

I followed that up with Mom's favourite a White breasted Nuthatch:

I was then almost attacked by this lovely little Downy:

Of course the Owls are doing great! I think we will start to see the youngsters in a couple of weeks.

We had some sun for a change. It was a great morning/noon time. The trails are getting muddy.

Turbo

Sunday evening Bluebird?.

Jamie popped down for an afternoon cruise, I think he is getting the bug:)
We headed over to the ranch, and even though it was the middle of the day we did pretty well:

3 eagles, 6 red tails, 15-20 roughies, 10 deer, 3 bald eagles, 1 Solitaire, and the sure sign of spring 12 robins!

One of these days I'll get a great shot of a Roughie:)

And did I mention, the Mountain Bluebirds have returned. Love these little birds.  Will need to wait about a month before the women folk come back and calm these males down, so we will be able to get close enough to get some decent shots.  This one was about 30 yards.

Have a great week everyone!

Turbo

Hooded Merganser :)

Our Sunday morning walk had to be re-routed, so we hit the next week's scheduled walk instead.We hit the nesting pair of GHO's for a peak and caught our first look of the returning American Robins, a sure sign of spring! Over to Mallard point for a lot of ducks and geese, with a mange coyote thrown in the mix as well. Oh, yeah, we also spent a few minutes with this rooster pheasant:

A new bird for me was this pair of Hooded Mergansers, here is the male with his crown extended:

And of course here is the Missus in a neck stretch display pose, who could resist?

All in all a good day, althought the weather was crap! -5 C with a brisk wind and heavy humidity, and very poor light conditions. There was hoar frost developing on all the plants and trees.

Turbo