Tag: animals

Eagles at Klamath Basin

I will admit to having a bit of the winter doldrums. It has been so cold for so long that most open water is frozen over and other than the birds that visit my backyard feeder, the places I visit have seemed empty and sterile. I belong to an online Birding Photographer site and was becoming envious of all the wonderful exotic places full of wildlife and birds that people were visiting. I started daydreaming of visiting some of the legendary places that kept being mentioned like Bosque Del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico and some different far flung destinations that I can’t realistically visit. That led me on a research hunt to find places I could go that were within reach. It seems silly that I did not realize or have the awareness that California, right next door, had so much to offer in the way of wildlife. Of course it is on the Pacific Flyway and has many refuges. I have overlooked all of this as I usually am oriented to looking east into the desert for inspiration. All of this led me to a weekend trip to the Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuge Complex on the California- Oregon border.
Visiting the refuge was an amazing experience that I will definitely repeat. During the winter months the Refuge plays host to the largest concentration of Bald Eagles in the contiguous United States with up to 1000 eagles visiting some years. Millions of waterfowl pass through the refuge on their way south for the winter and back north. The eagles come to take advantage of the bounty. In addition to the eagles there are lots of other raptors that winter there and live on the refuge year round. The amount of and diversity of wildlife I saw was amazing. Sometimes I hardly knew where to point my camera it was so overwhelming.
I rented a 500mm lens for a month so that I could use it on this trip and another outing I have planned in a couple of weeks. I am glad I did as it was nice to have the additional reach that my 400mm would not have afforded me. Speaking of affording, I will have to save my pennies for a 500mm of my own. It was pretty nice using this lens and will be a sad day when I have to send it back. That was what I was practicing with and for prior to this trip. I will be making several posts about visiting the Klamath Basin and showing photos from my visit but wanted to start with the rock stars of the Refuge: The Bald Eagles. Hope you enjoy!

Quail

Quail are among my favorite birds. I love their calls and that silly top knot feather they carry on their heads . I have quite a few visiting my yard this winter. They can’t get into my feeder but they wait patiently for the smaller birds to knock seeds down to them. From my tent blind I was able to take some decent photos of them yesterday.

Little Birds

Like everyone else who has tried to take photos of tiny birds I have experienced my share of frustration. A few months ago I purchased a portable blind I thought I would use in the field but it proved to be a bit of a hassle to carry with me. I set it up this week close to my bird feeder in the back yard to see what would happen. It was amazing how fast the birds acclimated to it and they don’t pay attention to me inside it snapping away at them. These are some images I was able to take from the blind. I am not quite satisfied with my efforts yet but hope to have more and better examples soon. Striving for that crisp, clear image with a nice background. We will see…

Mule Deer

The last few weeks I have been battling my fear of the dark to go out very early in the morning to try to capture good deer photos. It is challenging getting close to them and the light is tricky. I am learning a lot about deer and other wildlife sitting still for long hours at dawn but also learning how much I don’t know about photography. The light is tricky and I am struggling with getting the settings right before the sun comes up but I will continue to stumble along as all of this and me are a work in progress. Hope you enjoy the photos.

Autumn Collection

I have not been posting much lately because I have been out taking photos every spare moment. Love this time of year. The foliage of course is lovely but so fleeting here. We had a few days of peak color and then a storm rolled in with 60 mile an hour winds and temperatures in the twenties at night. Any leaves left clinging to the branches are a dull brown.

This is the best time of year to take deer photos. They are far more active and you are more likely to see the bucks hanging around the does. I have had good luck the last couple of weeks and the rut has not yet started. I got photos of this small two point and a giant buck this morning. The biggest I have ever been this close to. I hope to get more photos of this big fellow in a week or so when he has other things on his mind. I started wearing full camouflage and using scent killing spray. It seems to be working as I am getting very close to the deer before they spot me. Then it takes them a while to figure out what I am.

The Paint Filly

Click on the ( i ) in the left hand corner of the photos to read captions on the photos.

I found an old friend this last week while out stalking deer to photograph. I looked up from the cottonwood groves flanking the river to the dry hills and saw three horses headed to water. Even from afar I thought that I recognized the distinctive markings of one of the horses. I hurried to catch up with them, any thought of sneaking up on deer forgotten as I hoped I could intersect with the horses without spooking them. I was able to get down wind and into some thick sagebrush and waited along their return path as they drank at the river.

Peeking at them through the brush I was thrilled to see that the paint mare trailing her colorful foal, was well-known to me. I had taken quite a few photos of her and her band the summer of 2009 when she was born. Her distinctive markings made her easy to recognize. I had last seen her in the fall of 2011 a good 12 miles to the west of this location. At that time, she had still been with her mother and several other mares. Her sire was still in possession of his band of mares. I took some photos of them and then did not see her again until this week.

Obviously she was now a mother herself. I looked at the condition she was in and that of her foal and my heart fell. The drought we have been having is taking a terrible toll on all of the wild horses but especially mares and foals. The lack of snow and rain last winter has left very little for the horses to eat. I saw the foal trying to nurse and I am not sure she had any milk to give. They are walking great distances to find feed everyday and burning a lot of calories. I have been praying, along with everyone else for a good winter with heavy snow this year but that will surely mean a lot of these horses are not going to make it.

Yesterday I think I saw the paint again with her stallion. I looked in vain for the foal. They were very far away so I can’t be sure it was her at all.  I did not see a foal trailing them.

I am getting ready for my vacation in September. Two weeks of hiking so I have been in training. I have not been taking as many pictures because I have been speed hiking to prepare myself. I did take my camera out today and in spite of rushing across the landscape before the temperature exceeded 90, I was lucky to see quite a bit to photograph.

Ran into two coyotes and was fortunate that I saw them before they saw me. I think the sun was in their eyes and I was able to get off a few snaps before they hightailed it out of there. Noticed some wild horses coming down to water across the river and with the water between us they were fairly relaxed about my presence. My concerns about the drought taking a toll on them have unfortunately been warrented. These pictures are pretty hard to look at. This particular band does not seem to be feeding well at all. You can see every rib, hip bones are jutting out and you can count their vertebrae in their backbones. There is plenty of water to drink but the lack of snow and rain this spring meant very little grew for them to eat. They are not going into the hard months in  good shape.

I almost ran into this doe while she was doing a trim job on the lower branches of a cottonwood. I actually saw more wildlife today than I do when I am trying to be stealthy. Not sure what can be learned from that!

More Weed Lovers

I had another bust day with my friend the Kingfisher. I positioned myself opposite the branches he had been diving off the day before and of course he switched it up on me and dove off a dead tree where I had been sitting yesterday. Oh well. On the walk out I stopped by the patch of Milkweed thistle again as they were seeing quite a bit of activity. Two butterflies a house finch and much to my surprise and delight a couple of hummingbirds.  The orange winged insect is a Tarantula Hawk. You have to love that name. Any insect that hunts big spiders has me as a fan.  I stayed around and got photos of everyone who was taking advantage of the bounty that the purple flowers had to offer. No day outside is wasted!

Dreamy Dragonflies

One of the reasons I like photography is that as an A type personality it teaches me patience. I have always loved the outdoors and growing up I went hunting and fishing with a single minded purpose of bagging game or catching fish. With my camera I can still have a goal, because yes I need one, and get outside and explore the natural world. I used to get frustrated when I went out to take pictures of something specific with a specific target in mind and failed to accomplish what I set out to do. I have learned that nature and wildlife photography does not work that way of course.  It has taught me to expect, and more importantly to enjoy, the unexpected, the unforseen and this has been a revelation for me a planner and goal oriented person who does not like surprises.

Today I sat in the sagebrush for hours by the edge of a small pond with the goal of trying to take an action photo of a Kingfisher taking a fish from the water. I blew the shot. I sat in the wrong spot and did not have a good angle. The shots were blurry and I threw them out. I had a wonderful time though. Dragonflies kept me company and I had fun trying to take photos of these fast moving insects. After sitting still for several hours a mule deer doe walked right by me and bedded down about 25 feet from where I was sitting. She never saw me until I finally got up to leave misson unaccomplished but I had a wonderful time.