All posts by richardhoeg@gmail.com

Bald Eagle at Breakfast

One more photograph from my weekend up the shore at Grand Marais. While having breakfast on Saturday morning, I noticed a dark clump … one of my technical terms … out on the harbor breakwater in the pre-dawn darkness. I figured there was a good chance that a Bald Eagle had spent the night on the rocks. I quickly finished my bowl of Life Cereal and walked over to the harbor. Hiding next to the side of a building, I inched closer waiting for some light to illuminate the scene. This was the result!

It just goes to show … some days the photographic opportunities come to me with very little effort, but then there are mornings like today. It was cold (9F) with a 20 mph wind. Given the sun made a rare appearance I worked the back roads / farms of Duluth north of my home. My hope was I might find an early season Snowy Owl migrating south along the shore (nope), or at least some Rough Legged Hawks down from the Arctic perched in the early morning sun (double nope). Oh well … it’s off to Sax-Zim Bog tomorrow morning. The weather forecast includes our first overnight lows below zero (F), sunny and light winds.

Grand Marais Sunrise Lighthouse Photographic Studies

When you are out and about with your camera with the intent of taking landscape photographs, do you find a location and remain stationary? While there are certainly some locations where the interplay of light and the subject demand a preferred location for taking a photo, you are doing yourself a disservice if you do not “move around”!

This morning I was out before sunrise (per norm!) with the intent of photographing the Grand Marais, Minnesota lighthouse. The skies were clearing over Lake Superior, and the dawn was gorgeous. Here are three images I took over the course of ten minutes exactly. I changed locations frequently and the amount of zoom utilized which affected the sky displayed in any one image.  As the saying goes, every picture tells a story … in this case three different stories at essentially the same time.

Photo #1: Grand Marais Lighthouse

Photo #2: Grand Marais Lighthouse

Photo #3: Grand Marais Lighthouse

Red Crossbills Near Gunflint Lake (video)

I found a flock of Red Crossbills this morning near Gunflint Lake … just a few miles south of the Canadian Border in NE Minnesota. Assuming a good local food source, Crossbills are one of the few bird species which will mate and nest in the dead of winter. Many of the birds in this flock appeared to be paired off, and by my estimation the pine cone crop looked very good in the area. Thus, I would expect many of these birds to nest soon.

Red Crossbills Gritting Up

Male Red Crossbill

Female Red Crossbill

A Happy Couple

Looking across Gunflint Lake towards Canada (about the only ice free lake in the area because it is deep)


Red Crossbills Video Link