Bee Balm Beauties

Year 8

Soon January will be here with its -30F degree weather, but for the moment it is summer and all our garden’s  perennials are ablaze in their glory. In addition, the Black-Eyed Susans in our yard’s tall grasses do the landscape with lots of yellow. Thus, I spent another evening with Chardonnay and Hummers!

The trend continues that I have not seen any male Ruby-Throats for several days. I suspect they have begun their long migration to South America. However the youngsters are madly fighting over the Bee Balm. On quiet evenings (not much wind), I can even hear the hummingbirds singing!

This one hummer hides in a tree ten yards from the flowers. If another Ruby-Throat ventures to close to our garden, this bird enters attack mode.

Surrounding our Bee Balm are lots and lots of Purple Cone Flowers

Finally some camera notes … while I do very little post processing of my images, these are the basics which I often tweak:

  • Open JPG file in Camera Raw (I do not shoot in raw)
  • Push clarity up to about 40. Helps brings out feathers
  • Increase Shadows by about one degree (+12 in Photoshop Elements). I tend to underexpose a touch to avoid images being blown out. Tweaking the shadows helps me bring the exposure up in post processing.
  • Minor crops of images to emphasize different features of photo (never use digital zoom)
  • Use “Auto Enhance Contrast”
  • Tweak “Shake Reduction” (photo needs to first be in focus for this edit to work)

As a reminder I use a basic monopod, and “never” shoot in Auto. I tend to first focus upon my subject using Aperture Priority to learn the camera’s desired shutter speed. I often then switch to Shutter Priority and expose at a slightly faster speed. With my Canon SX-70 because of the small sensor, I tend to select the minimum ISO of 100 (need good light). With my Sony A6300 I allow the camera to choose the ISO between 100 and 800. Remember, the lower the ISO … the higher the quality of the end image.

Black-Billed Magpies at Sax-Zim Bog

Year 8

Magpies are common out west, and are definitely expanding their range into Minnesota, but would still be considered rare in NE Minnesota. I watched a family of seven Black-Billed Magpies up at Sax-Zim Bog this morning. The magpies were hanging around the intersection of Zim Road and Hwy #7. Use your ears, and you’ll likely find them. They were on both sides of the highway, and often foraging right next to the RR tracks (south of Zim Rd).

This is a repeat performance from my birding experience over on Northstar Lake two weeks back. It was delightful.

Summer’s Last Fledglings

Year 8,

The winter migration officially starts in six days on August 1st (see BirdCast)! However it is 87F as a write this blog post, and I have spent the last 24 hours watching birds whose young will fledge very soon … in fact the last birds to fledge this summer. My target birds are Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds, Merlins, and Belted Kingfishers (other raptors are also late to fledge).

For Belted Kingfishers one of my favorite birding locations is just upstream from the mouth of the Lester River. Descend the stairs on the uphill side of the London Road Lester River Bridge (park on the dead end 61st Ave East reached off Superior Street). The kingfishers nest in the bank on the other side of the river, and as of this morning both parents were now actively hunting for their young. Slowly walk along the path next to the river bank and peek out through the foliage. The far bank does not tend to be in the sun till about 8:15 am due to the depth of the ravine.

My local Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds are also making a huge number of visits to the Bee Balm, which is indicative that their young have hatched.

Finally, I am monitoring two Merlin nests between Lester River and Talmadge River. Both nests as heard while bicycling this morning were quite noisy!