Out in the Open
My morning started with a shadowy view of the night heron, which was doing a fantastic job of clinging to the steep slope of a dead tree trunk using only one foot:
That shot was truthfully way too dark to take and the grain in the photo is evidence of that. More light was needed. I turned my gaze to the far bank where the night's veil had already lifted. I was trying to spot the red-tailed hawk whose cries I could hear, when I picked up some movement right at the edge of the lake. I knew instantly what it was, as I have met this creature before... going back to the last week in May this year, I remember that I was having a hard time obtaining any detailed photos of a pied-billed grebe which had been working the middle of the lake for about one week. Here is the photo I finally captured:
I was using any vantage point I could find to get a little closer, and one of those vantage points was a concrete drainage pipe which I was standing on with my back propped against a tree. I was up above the ground and could see the grebe clearly over the tops of the reeds. While attaining focus, I was interrupted by some rustling lowdown in the reeds, but paid little attention as the red squirrels had been running around in the undergrowth, and it was the pied-billed grebe which I really wanted. The rustling continued and then stopped at the end of the pipe I was standing on. I looked down from my camera to see a little brown head with two sharp eyes looking back at me over the edge of the pipe. I imagined it would run off after seeing me, but no, it jumped up on the other end of the pipe not quite 4 feet away and started swaying its head from one side to the other in an attempt to find a route past me. I know I should have at least tried to take a photo, but I was truthfully more concerned with getting out of the way. We both jumped off either end of the concrete pipe and went our separate ways, thank goodness. That was my first encounter with the mink, and this was my second, only much further than 4 feet away, it was on the other bank. If you can see a brown smudge in the middle of the photo, then you have found the mink:
Whatever the mink was dragging along with it was the same size as the mink. The mink also caught the attention of the young red-tailed hawk who landed in the tree above it. I ventured around to that side of the lake. Not thinking that I would be able to get a closer photo of the mink, it is way too canny for that, but the red-tailed hawk, I thought I might have a chance. Framed with the blurred edges of the fork in a tree, one of the two red-tailed hawks who were hunting at the lake this morning:
I met another photographer at the lake this morning. A very friendly gent who said he'd seen someone's posts of the osprey and had come to check Lakeside Park out. I guided him to the main seated area where you can view the whole of the lake. From there, he saw the arctic tern, the kingfishers, two red-tailed hawks and the night heron who was very unusually standing out in the open in the daylight:
The gent seemed happy with what he'd seen, and as I left him, I wished him good luck with the osprey.
I'll finish off with this photo, which I took during my usual trek through the undergrowth. It is called a question mark butterfly:
Copyright © wildlakeside.blogpot.com 2019 Scott Atkinson All Rights Reserved.
That shot was truthfully way too dark to take and the grain in the photo is evidence of that. More light was needed. I turned my gaze to the far bank where the night's veil had already lifted. I was trying to spot the red-tailed hawk whose cries I could hear, when I picked up some movement right at the edge of the lake. I knew instantly what it was, as I have met this creature before... going back to the last week in May this year, I remember that I was having a hard time obtaining any detailed photos of a pied-billed grebe which had been working the middle of the lake for about one week. Here is the photo I finally captured:
I was using any vantage point I could find to get a little closer, and one of those vantage points was a concrete drainage pipe which I was standing on with my back propped against a tree. I was up above the ground and could see the grebe clearly over the tops of the reeds. While attaining focus, I was interrupted by some rustling lowdown in the reeds, but paid little attention as the red squirrels had been running around in the undergrowth, and it was the pied-billed grebe which I really wanted. The rustling continued and then stopped at the end of the pipe I was standing on. I looked down from my camera to see a little brown head with two sharp eyes looking back at me over the edge of the pipe. I imagined it would run off after seeing me, but no, it jumped up on the other end of the pipe not quite 4 feet away and started swaying its head from one side to the other in an attempt to find a route past me. I know I should have at least tried to take a photo, but I was truthfully more concerned with getting out of the way. We both jumped off either end of the concrete pipe and went our separate ways, thank goodness. That was my first encounter with the mink, and this was my second, only much further than 4 feet away, it was on the other bank. If you can see a brown smudge in the middle of the photo, then you have found the mink:
Whatever the mink was dragging along with it was the same size as the mink. The mink also caught the attention of the young red-tailed hawk who landed in the tree above it. I ventured around to that side of the lake. Not thinking that I would be able to get a closer photo of the mink, it is way too canny for that, but the red-tailed hawk, I thought I might have a chance. Framed with the blurred edges of the fork in a tree, one of the two red-tailed hawks who were hunting at the lake this morning:
I met another photographer at the lake this morning. A very friendly gent who said he'd seen someone's posts of the osprey and had come to check Lakeside Park out. I guided him to the main seated area where you can view the whole of the lake. From there, he saw the arctic tern, the kingfishers, two red-tailed hawks and the night heron who was very unusually standing out in the open in the daylight:
The gent seemed happy with what he'd seen, and as I left him, I wished him good luck with the osprey.
I'll finish off with this photo, which I took during my usual trek through the undergrowth. It is called a question mark butterfly:
Copyright © wildlakeside.blogpot.com 2019 Scott Atkinson All Rights Reserved.
Beautiful butterfly photo!
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