Molly and I are down in the Twin Cities for a wedding and dinner with friends. This morning at sunrise I took time to visit a bunch of birding locations in the NW burbs. My final stop was what I call the Plymouth Wetlands, but which has the official name of Three Ponds Park. One reason I love this park is it has a ton of undeveloped land with narrow dirt trails. For the person willing to then go “off trail” there are lots of great places for both watching birds, but also where one is able to easily hide from our feathered friends. Such was the case this morning when I watched Great Egrets and Green Herons in search of their breakfast. (video link for email subscribers of a Great Egret catching breakfast snacks)
I hope everyone had a great Memorial Day Weekend. Our family … all three kids, their spouses, and seven grandchildren got together, and a grand time was had by all. Between the thunder storms which worked their way through the state, and lots of great family time, I did get a few minutes hiking outdoors … normally around 6 am before the rest of the crew greeted the new day. Here are a few pics …
First I found my owls upon returning home, or should I say they found me.
Wild Turkeys were trying to impress their lady loves
They’re back! Like a herd of dust in a cloud to turtles! I had been hoping the Great Horned Owl owlets would return to my favorite pine grove. As a reminder, I have been following the parents for three years, and each of the past two summers the owl family has moved back to my favorite pine grove for July and August. I had always felt the move corresponded to other birds fledging and thus prey opportunities had changed. Young Robins, Grackles, Flickers, Blue Jays and Crows are now great targets for young owls learning how to hunt.
Thus, this morning I was hiking by 5:30 am, and was shortly rewarded by spotting two owlets sitting within inches of each other. Although the photography conditions were still somewhat dark in the pine grove, I set the ISO high on my camera. For some strange reason, I could not get a focus lock. Yup, good photographers make dumb mistakes, and I made two such mistakes this morning.
My lens was still set to manual focus (moon photography a few days ago)
Above problem now being solved … while moving to a better vantage point … crack … I stepped on a dry stick. I know better. While my owls put up with me being close, they hate loud unexpected noises like a stick breaking. Both owlets flew off immediately.
After 30 minutes additional hiking I located the third owlet with some thanks to the local robin population which were clucking like crazy and helped me locate junior. Here are two images.
A wood duck family I found just after sunrise yesterday morning. The sun is very low in the sky, making me almost invisible to the duck family. The sun was directly behind me back. In the second photo, something caught the duck family’s attention, but I personally had no idea at what they all were looking.
Finally, here are two short videos taken over the past few days … the wood duck family and the Common Loon on its nest. (video links for email subscribers … wood ducks … common loon).
