A Damp, Early Spring Day at Sweet Marsh By just looking out the window this morning, really all day, a person might not think exploring at Sweet Marsh would be worthwhile. Even I was not sure, but I ventured out anyway just to look around. Yes it was cool and damp, but it was …
Passing By My plans for the day changed unexpectedly, so I made the best of what time I had by riding my bike around the still frozen Sweet Marsh. Even with my bike and helmet clearly visible and contrasting with my camouflage, waterfowl species flew or swam past with some regularity. All I had …
Any Day Now My camouflage cover for my kayak is ready, my dry bags are ready, my PFD is ready, my camera equipment is ready, let’s see…what is missing? Oh, that’s right – we need open water in the ponds, lakes, and wetlands, or we need river levels to drop back down to normal. …
Hooded Mergansers It seems one small area of open water is a preferred location for many hooded mergansers. Each of the past few days I have enjoyed watching the attractive birds, even though they seldom stick around for long. Today’s viewing of mergansers was the longest to date (for 2019), but did not go …
Seen Today – Most in Hiding With so much water where it should not be (due to flooding), incoming migrating waterfowl have plenty of resting, feeding, and hiding places that make wildlife photography challenging. It seems getting close happens only by chance. Wildlife that is seen tends to be quite far away. Most pictures …
Still Waiting and Watching Since we could not do a “Marsh Migrations” kayak outing tonight due to 16″-20″ of ice at Sweet Marsh, I went out just to watch for and possibly to photograph migrating waterfowl and other species. I did see a few things – like male red-winged blackbirds, a river otter, and …
Where’s My Bridge I doubt there was anyone else in the whole wide world asking “Where’s my bridge” other than me the past couple of days. High water moving large ice chunks took out a bridge on the Cedar River. We are not talking about a small bridge. The Green Mill Bridge was nearly …
A Bald Eagle and More Mergansers From Yesterday Due to an urgent work-related issue, my time searching for wildlife photos was very limited today. Had it not been for this bald eagle in a tree watching mergansers, I may not have seen any wildlife that I could photograph. Bald Eagle in Tree: …
Watching For More With each day of warmer weather I am watching for more waterfowl and other migratory bird species to arrive. Based only on what I saw through my camera and lenses today, no new species arrived overnight. I did shoot photos of a couple of species that have been around at least …
Displaced Wildlife, In-Place Wildlife Today’s post describes observations made today of two types of wildlife. First we will study two flood-displaced wildlife species I encountered. Species #1 is a common wildlife species, a mammal, that I have not photographed alive before. I don’t remember ever seeing one alive in the wild, until today. As …