Green Herons
The little Green Heron has been the equivalent of my photographic “spirit animal” for several years now, ever since I captured the image above. It my my first morning out with my Canon 300L, and a foggy morning at that. I didn’t even have the 1.4x teleconverter yet, but I still managed to get in [...]
A mix of shore-dwellers
Spring’s progression doesn’t only bring green back to the landscape in an amazing range of hues, but also brings waves of new avian species to the area. I’ve managed to capture a number of migrants already this year, some of them common and others much less so. And now some of the regulars are returning, [...]
Simple Clicks – Ruby-crowned Kinglet
This little guy is a Ruby-crowned Kinglet, although the ruby-colored crown on the top of his head that gives him his name isn’t showing in these images. He’s one of those lucky grabs that happened unexpectedly, while I was up at Fords Pond. I wasn’t really there with any expectation of photographing wildlife, but I [...]
Simple Clicks – Loon at Lackawanna
I started this post writing about how I’d finally seen my first Common Loon up at Lackawanna State Park. It would have been only the second loon I’ve ever seen and the first locally. But I kept looking back at the photo thinking that it wasn’t right and, to satisfy my nagging doubts, I did [...]
A tale of two sandpipers
Sandpipers are fairly uncommon in Pennsylvania during any time of the year. Your might assume that these wading shorebirds are at home on oceanic beaches, which is a habitat that the Commonwealth lacks. Turns out that’s not quite the case, and some species actually prefer marsh, field, and even wooded environments. I’ve encountered more sandpipers [...]
Merganser troubles
The female Common Merganser pictured above has become one of my regular subjects up at Lackawanna State Park. She hangs out in the marsh at the northern end of the lake, where the South Branch of Tunkhannock Creek empties into it. For several weeks in a row I’ve found her sitting on the muddy shoreline [...]
Predators & Prey
Predator: the Great Blue Heron. A large and somewhat ungainly bird in flight, or especially if you’ve ever seen one land on a pine bough. They’re a bit skittsh and, when startled or irritated, let out a cartoonish squawk as they take off and fly away amid a flurry of beating wings. But put one [...]
Canada Geese
Like the Red-winged Blackbirds I wrote about last time, Canada Geese have found themselves in front of my camera pretty often lately. They’re something of an unexpected subject, or rather it’s unexpected that I’d come away with photos that I was happy with. Canada Geese aren’t the most wild of critters. I overheard some fishermen [...]
Eagles in Spring
It’s an irony not lost on me that, after my eagling expeditions this past winter, where I drive over an hour to the New York boarder and then another 20 or so miles in to the reservoir and Plank Road, some of my best eagle photos of 2013 have come from the pond 20 minutes [...]
Simple Clicks – an oddity
This is a Pied-billed Grebe. Or at least his head. The rest of him is underwater and in the ten minutes or so that I was paddling near him, I only saw him come fully to the surface once. This grebe is a summer resident and one that I’ve never seen before. Rather than taking [...]
