bald eagle – Page 3 – A Thousand Acres of Silphiums

Bald Eagle Nest – Week One

Bald Eagle Nest 2014, birds, wildlife

Hello there. I am ready to announce an ongoing project we have started recently. A friend of mine informed me of a newly built Bald Eagle nest on his neighbor’s property. With his help and that of the property owners, G & C, we discovered some viewing locations that worked well for photography while not stressing the birds too terribly. We are keeping the location secret, but I will say it is found along the Meramec River in St. Louis County, MO. Thanks so much to everyone involved who has helped me get these images. It has been an incredible experience. The chicks are now approximately five weeks old. The images in this post were taken when the chicks were less than a week old. I hope to continue weekly monitoring and photography until they fledge, which should take place at 10-12 weeks.

The nest is located ~ 75 feet in a large sycamore. The reason we have such an excellent viewing angle into the nest is that the nest tree grows at the bottom of the river valley’s ridge. We are placed at about the same height on the steep ridge, about 200-300 feet or so from the nest. An uncomfortable place to watch, but worth it.

We have all been shocked by their speedy growth rate. These are likely first time parents, but they have been doing an excellent job of raising these two, as far as I can tell. 😉 There is an obvious difference in size between the two chicks, that can still be see today.

Here’s to Fishin’

birds, wildlife

There are so many reasons I love spending time at Clarksville watching the eagles. One of the primary reasons this is so much fun for me is the glimpse that it provides of the biology and everyday life of these birds. I can never predict what the birds will be doing or even where they will be on a particular day. Try and use the weather patterns to predict their numbers and when and where they’ll be fishing or finding a meal. More than likely you’ll be wrong. Just recently I was somewhat disappointed during a trip where I thought the conditions would be perfect for some photography of some wild fishing activity. Nope. During that day the birds were in the hundreds, but primarily concentrated near the ice-line about a half mile downstream. I guess maybe they were finding meals in the disappearing ice?

So, here are a few interesting things that I think only still photography can give one a glimpse of.

You see this in a lot of the eagle shots that I post. I love that the birds always look closely at their catch, even as they are still getting the air back underneath their wings. Every-time they do this. I’m not sure if they’re inspecting the size of their meal, or if perhaps they’re just ensuring a good foothold on their prey.

Next is something I noticed while I was watching in the middle of one of our extreme cold spells this winter. There were not great numbers of birds fishing immediately below the dam, but those that were there were fishing like crazy! I saw several instances of what you see here: birds with obviously stuffed crops were still picking them up left and right. I wondered if these might be animals with chicks in nests nearby.

Finally for tonight, here is one I was fortunate to catch a frame of. This fish was so large and the eagle was travelling so quickly that the inertia rips the single leg that had a strong hold backwards. The bird seemed to barely hold on.

Location Spotlight: Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge

birds, landscape, location spotlight, Uncategorized, wildlife

“Traditional Boundaries”

Technical details: Canon EOS 7D camera, EF400mm f/5.6L USM lens, ISO 400, f/10, 1/1250 sec

I’m finally taking a few of the images I made during my first visit to Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge last autumn and putting them into a blog post. Living within miles of the Mississippi River Flyway – an ancestral route many migratory birds follow in their north-south seasonal movements – I have all sorts of options in visiting well-managed wetland areas to watch and photograph waterfowl. Of all these locations none has the opportunities for getting great looks at numbers and diversity of bird species that can be found at Squaw Creek NWR, located near Mound City in north-western Missouri, not too far from the Nebraska Border.

“Cacophonic”

Technical details: Canon EOS 7D camera, EF400mm f/5.6L USM lens, ISO 1600, f/5.6, 1/125 sec

The big stars at Squaw Creek around Thanksgiving and surrounding weeks are the Snow Geese. For years I had read about and seen images of the more than one million birds that pass through this location every fall. At peak times more than 500,000 birds can be counted on the reserve at one time. I had images in mind that I hoped to make if I could find the birds present in these kinds of numbers. I really had little clue of where and when I needed to be set up and if I had the ammunition (lenses) to make the images I had in mind. I feel the photos I was able to get are of mixed success due to several reasons. I was quite lucky in the numbers of birds that showed up. A week before my visit the counts were only a little more than 10,000. The day I arrived the latest weekly count suggested there were more than 250,000 on the reserve. This is shy of the 500-600K that can be found during peek times, but for my first visit, it was quite a treat! Of the 1.5 days I had to spend here, one full day was very cloudy and dark, making bird photography particularly troublesome. Around noon on my last day the sky cleared and I was able to get some nice light. Hopefully I can spend a few days more during my next visit.

“Let My Army Be The Rocks And The Trees And The Birds In The Sky”

Technical details: Canon EOS 7D camera, EF400mm f/5.6L USM lens, ISO 400, f/8, 1/1250 sec

Snow Geese are not the only waterfowl that can be found in good numbers here. In almost every one of these types of images Greater White-fronted Geese, Green-winged Teal, Northern Pintail, Mallards and more can be found as well.

“The Snow & the Mist”

Technical details: Canon EOS 7D camera, EF400mm f/5.6L USM lens, ISO 1600, f/8, 1/100 sec

Squaw Creek NWR and its 7500 acres was established in 1935 just in time. Close to 98% of the original marshes and related wetlands that border the Missouri River in the state of Missouri have been destroyed or permanently altered – mostly for use as farmland. Thankfully sportsmen realized the importance for providing habitat for migrating and over-wintering waterfowl and a series of these man-made marshes were built near Kansas City, Columbia and St. Louis. This image is actually a composite of two separate photographs – the foreground and the background, both taken in extremely cloudy and grey conditions. I was surprised by how well this blending worked and I feel it represents what it was like on this first day, the geese constantly taking off in large groups and others taking their place in the marshes.

“Squaw Creek Eagle”

Technical details: Canon EOS 7D camera, EF400mm f/5.6L USM lens, ISO 800, f/5.6, 1/400 sec

Waterfowl are not the only birds or wildlife that utilize the reserve. Although you can see more Bald Eagles in spots along the Mississippi River, I have never been able to get as close to these birds perched as I did during this visit. This is true with the wildlife in general. The auto-route roads were set perfectly in the reserve, in my opinion. Getting close enough to the wildlife can be troublesome from the roads at other places I visit, but here the roads are much better situated near the pools and the wildlife never seem to be overly stressed. During the time of my visit with cloudy weather and poor light, I was able to get closer to several duck species than I have ever been able to before.

“White Ibis”

Technical details: Canon EOS 7D camera, EF400mm f/5.6L USM lens, ISO 400, f/5.6, 1/640 sec

This White Ibis was actually a very late bird for this part of Missouri and it made a bit of noise in the MO birding community. This was also one of my best looks at this species. I had found it the day before and took some rather poor photos. I was happy to see it still in the same pool the next day when light was better.

“Snow Geese on Loess”

Technical details: Canon EOS 50D camera, EF70-200mm f/4L IS USM lens @ 150mm, ISO 100, f/10, 1/200 sec

This image is probably my favorite from this trip. To me, it really captures the essence of the place and I believe this is what this area looked like when Lewis and Clark first laid eyes to this part of the country. The bluffs in the background are known as loess hills and are formed by the actions of glaciers. Along with draining the natural wetland habitats along the Big Muddy, European settlers also got busy destroying many of the impressive loess hills, using the fertile soil for numerous development and farming projects. Many of these features are still being harvested and destroyed to this day.

There are several more nationally well-known reserves like this throughout the country that scores of photographers, nature lovers, biologists and sportsmen flock to every year. I can’t imagine a spot being more suited for these activities than Squaw Creek NWR. I hope to make an annual pilgrimage to this location on Thanksgiving week.

If you make the visit and are looking for a nice place to eat, I highly recommend “Klub”. This is a great place to enjoy a late dinner after spending the day at the reserve, which is only about ten minutes away. They have a great menu using a lot of fresh, local ingredients. I ate here twice during my visit and I was quite surprised to find such a quality establishment in such a little town like Mound City.

Thanks for paying a visit. You can find more photographs taken from this location by visiting my Squaw Creek Flickr Set