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 [...]
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 [...]
Simple Clicks – the darker side of nature
Amid the glitz and glamour of the natural world that I usually photograph, there are times when the darker side of nature shows itself. I came across this along an inaccessible section of the shoreline at Lackawanna State Park. What you’re seeing here – behind the water bottle – is the skull of a White-tailed [...]
Simple Clicks – Spring is in the air
Spring is in the air, or so goes the old euphemism for the mating season, when everything from the birds to the bees starts feeling the urge to go out and, well…reproduce. In this case, it’s the rather large Common Snapping Turtle pictured above. I found him in the marsh at Lackawanna State Park while paddling [...]
Simple Clicks – Spotted Sandpiper
Been a while since I’ve seen one of these guys. Meet the Spotted Sandpiper, another uncommon visitor to our region. Fords Pond seems to attract them from time to time, since the last one stopped over here also. They’re cute little birds but are usually skittish, like most plovers. Close approaches are out of the [...]
Simple Clicks – Miscellanious Wildlife
The past couple of weeks have been a wildlife extravaganza. Having a kayak hasn’t just given me the ability to get out on the water, it’s given me an access and approach-ability to a wide range of wildlife that I’d never be able to work with otherwise. I’ve posted about some of them, and will be talking [...]
Red-Winged Blackbirds
It’s been a while since I’ve done a post on just one species, but after the past couple of weeks I’ve found that my “to be shared” folder is filled with photos of a couple different individuals, and this seemed the best way to get them out there. So we’ll start with the ubiquitous lake and [...]
Crappy cell phone photo of the day
This is the first of what I assume may be many crappy cell phone photos I end up sharing here. Sorry. It was bound to happen some day. The whole “the best camera is the one you have with you thing.” I wasn’t out this afternoon with photography in mind, but when I got caught [...]
Simple Clicks – A change in elevation
After leaving Archbald Regional Park on Friday morning, I stopped up at the Eales Preserve on Moosic Mountain to see how the season was developing there. I also had the faint hope that the Eastern Towhees would be back. No dice on that one, which wasn’t a surprise. It’s amazing how much difference a [...]
