All of these photos were taken a week ago, except not quite – it was Saturday morning, but around sunrise, and this is posting well before sunrise. Just to take that accusatory tone away from you.
I won’t say it was a great outing, given that the sunrise didn’t perform worth a doodle and the bird activity was kind of sparse, but we (meaning the Incalculable Mr Bugg and I) still managed a few photos. Above is about as good as the sunrise colors got – not a cloud in the sky, too little humidity to cause much refraction, so the sun rose quite yellow. But before that, in the dawn twilight, we could see things happening.
The light was too dim for me to even bother thinking about distant birds, and I still had the 18-135mm attached as a bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) swooped down to the surface and snagged a fish – at that distance I couldn’t even be sure that it was an eagle until it made the capture, reaching below the surface with its talons as it cruised overhead, rather than crashing violently into the water as the ospreys do. It must have been a monster fish, because the eagle had serious difficulty gaining altitude with the burden and remained only a meter off the surface for quite some distance. Would have been nice to have seen that in the light.
In fact, four eagles cruised past before the light was decent, and then vanished once the visibility was good for photos. So I just have some barely-adequate images of two more of them.
The two left images are the originals, while the two right are the edited versions to show what detail could be discerned at those exposures. The top one certainly seems to be a third-year juvenile, displaying the stripe along the face and a nearly-white tail (I’m assuming, anyway – at least it’s much lighter than the body.) The lower one, on the other hand, could potentially be a first or second year juvie – there are hints of mottling, but it’s hard to prove this isn’t just underexposure variations. The silhouettes of each certainly say, “eagle,” though.
And of course, herons were in evidence.
Several great blue herons (Ardea herodias herodias) were hanging about and jockeying for ideal positions along the shore, but not even hunting as far as we could see. I fired off a few frames for fart’s sake but otherwise paid them little attention.
We scoured the trees as they became visible in the rising light, trying to see other eagles or osprey or anything else of interest before we got too close and spooked them, but all we saw were vultures – lots of vultures.
Most of them, and the only ones that I got worthwhile shots of, were turkey vultures (Cathartes aura) – I have enough images of the species perched, and flying overhead, that I don’t waste too much time with them anymore. I did a few frames as the full sunlight colored them much more yellow than they actually are, but this lessens the contrast with their bare red heads at least.
Around the lake, they seem reasonably acclimated to humans and didn’t get concerned until we got within about 12 meters or so, deciding that was close enough – but after we’d passed, they returned to the same perches, and I couldn’t tell you what the draw was. There didn’t seem to be any corpses around to attract them, and the lakeshore has an abundance of places to settle that no person can come close to.
The lake level was way down, perhaps the lowest that I’ve seen it, and this revealed much of the bed of the old railroad spur that crossed that arm of the lake; at the distant end, the buoys that marked the shallow rock hazard to boaters were no longer floating but resting on those rocks themselves, rising out of the water now. And right near those, a curious formation attracted our attention.
A female double-crested cormorant (Nannopterum auritum) was fast asleep out on the end of the exposed spur bed, ignoring the fishing boats that sat no more than 15 meters off. Seeing as how the footing was more-or-less dry leading up to her, we began stalking up as quietly as possible.
I thought we were kind of screwed when the nearby boater decided to fire up the outboard, startling the cormorant awake. But she was made of sterner stuff, and merely eyed the boat as it circled around towards deeper water, then tucked her head back down again and lapsed back into slumber.
We drew up as close as we could reasonably get, given the large, algae-covered rocks that threatened to twist ankles, and fired off several frames. Then, asking if Mr Bugg was ready, I gave off a few sharp whistles that brought her awake again, because a Headless Cormorant, while seasonal, wasn’t very photogenic.
She awakened as intended, finding us maybe about ten meters off, and surveyed us judiciously. I figured she’d take to the air, but she was singularly unimpressed by our proximity and demeanor and, within ten seconds, tucked back down to resume her nap. Given that it was Saturday morning, I reckon she was hungover. You can’t see the eyes too well here, but they’re normally deep blue-green in color, and I imagine that becomes rather startling when they’re bloodshot…
Annnddd not much else, really. A passing belted kingfisher (Megaceryle alcyon) presented a few somewhat distant photo ops.
I’m still after some nice, close portraits, which continually eludes me, but at least I could show how this one was in mid-molt, with two gaps in each wing from the missing primary flight feathers. The lack of another, orange band across the breast pegs this as a male, which is curious, since it’s usually the males that have more colors than the females. And I just found out, while confirming that the scientific name hasn’t changed since the last time I featured one, that they actually nest in burrows at the water’s edge – not what I expected at all, and now I have that to add to my list for the spring. I really need to find an area that they frequent and stake it out for a while.
The autumn colors were well before peak while we were there, but in some places they could look a little impressive, as long as you cut out the surrounding areas where they didn’t.
Not bad, right? You’re looking at nearly all of the colors in this area, with only singular trees here and there showing off otherwise. I might still get out to do a dedicated colors outing, if I can find a good spot, but I’m juggling availability right now. We’ll see I guess.