Day 130: Wild Turkey and Chicks Photo

Background

The quick version of this post is I spent fifteen minutes during a bike ride watching this mom and here chicks. When an eagle flew overhead, the mom got concerned!

The longer version of how one gets this kind of photograph is as follows … I like to take long bike rides in the Minnesota countryside. While on bike with my camera and monopod along for the ride, I am able to see many things that either a person in a car or walking would never view. In a car one moves to fast and is restricted to the road. Walking is great, but if I know good birding areas, my bike ride gives both good exercise and the ability to explore a bit quicker. (more on biking and birding)

Today when I saw the wild turkey family, I stopped at a distance and let the mom grow accustomed to me. It was important I not be perceived as a threat. For most of the time the chicks were in long prairie grass where it was almost impossible to see them. However, the mom finally led her brood out onto this grassy patch. I was in the middle of taking a sequence of photos when the eagle flew over and made my day, but scared the turkeys!

Mother Wild Turkey and her Chicks
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Day 129: Morning Patrol Take-Off

Year 1

Living by Lake Superior is sweet. Even though we are having thunder storms all day, a temporary break in the weather shortly after dawn allowed me to pop down to Brighton Beach and catch these seagulls with my camera!

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Day 128: Day of the Trumpets!

Year 1

Back in the 1960’s when I was a young boy the trumpeter swan almost became extinct. Over the intervening 50 years the swan has clawed itself back where several thousand now live in North America. In northern Minnesota I am privileged to often see and hear these noble creatures.

When trumpeter swans fly and sing out, it an amazing sight and sound. Their call truly sounds like a trumpet, and their stretched out necks looks like a medieval trumpet.  For this photo, I was using a very, very long zoom to not disturb this pair of birds … and hiding in some bull rushes. For more information on this largest swan in North America, please link to the Trumpeter Swan Society.

While walking back to my car, I also finally photographed the “bandit bird” (my nickname). For almost ten days I have been trying to get a good photo of a common yellow-throat. Normally these birds would be deep in thickets and marsh making a photograph impossible. Not today!

Trumpeter Swan
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Common Yellow-Throat
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