Field Guide – Linda & Robert Scarth

The male Sharp-tailed Grouse were still dancing on their leks at Namekagon Barrens in northwestern Wisconsin. When we walked to the blind on the Sunday morning it was 20° F (-6 C). The blind was snug and well designed; one of the best we have used. We were comfortable with our winter boots, snow pants and long underwear. We had awakened at 3:30 a.m. to be in the blind a few minutes after 5. There were some birds already at the lek. (When we had scouted the leks the first evening, we saw a few birds at one of the leks.)

Forty-five minutes later, as the sun peeked over the northeastern horizon, a warm glow tiptoed across the lek. There were at least 20 males visible through the blind’s port openings. More were seen occasionally jumping just over the edge of the highest area in the middle of the lek.

The birds did not tiptoe but stamped out their flamenco steps while rotating and sometimes moving quickly to one side. They spoke a language of cackles and chuk-a-luks with cooing undertones. Perfect music to accompany their performances.

Even as it became light we needed to keep high ISOs and shallow depth of fields to keep the shutter speeds up enough to stop the action as the birds danced.  One frustration was their tendency to move to spots where their heads were blocked by tufts of grass while their bodies and tails remained in sharp focus. The job of deleting such images is always a necessary chore.

After the last birds flew south across the Barrens just before 8 a.m., we walked back to our pick-up camper on a beautiful morning and headed to Virginia. While there we did programs for the Williamsburg Bird Club and the John Clayton Chapter of the Virginia Native Plant Society. The weather was warm and and the reception friendly.

Our hosts took us to Jamestown Island where we found the large patches of Jamestown Lilies that the first settlers commented on 400 years ago. They were in full bloom around the edges of wetter grassy areas. More on them next post.

In the last couple of weeks we have photographed at two Great Horned Owl nests. One is in a tree in the middle of a small town. A resident told us that parents have nested there for at least ten years. The second nest is in a cave on a cliff in a nature preserve. Owls have nested there for almost twenty years.

The youngsters at both nests appeared to be about six weeks old at the times we saw them. The one above, which we photographed a week ago, is high in a cottonwood tree. The large snag at the end of a big branch is hollow enough for a nest. If offers protection from the winter elements for the parent on the nest in January and February. We saw only one of the three youngsters.

There was natural light – sun in a hazy sky – on the nest snag at mid-afternoon and some fill flash was used. There are catchlights in the eyes, but the young owl’s bushy eyebrows shaded its eyes more than we liked. The general exposure was acceptable. Here is where converting a raw file with ACR (Adobe Camera Raw) came to the rescue. Because it was a raw file, adjustments to exposure around the eyes could be made with the adjustment brush without changing the overall exposure. Opening up the light on the eyes improved the image. Except for the eyes, the rest of the owl is well camouflaged in plain sight.

Yesterday we spent several hours observing the two youngsters (below) in their cave.  The cave is visible and at a good angle for observing from a bridge across the creek to the side of the cliff. Here the flash extender proved very useful. When we arrived, one of the twins was out on the ‘porch’ of the cave. It was a cooperative subject for full frame images while it napped, watched hikers across the creek and a insect flying around it, glared at a small child who stomped on the bridge, and sometimes looked at us. The flash and extender put a bit of light on its left eye which would have been shaded because natural light was coming from its right (left side of the image.)

When several boys in kayaks came quietly down the creek, the young owl considered them for a moment and retreated into the darkness at the back of the cave. Though in the  dark, we had seen movement from the second owl. We could see both of them moving about but could not see any details in the gloom. The overhang also obscured the scene.

We moved back along the bridge to change the angle of view and include both owls. In fact, we moved the tripod several times until the angle of view was perpendicular to the owls after they had settled into this pose. One of the youngsters dozed against the other.

The flash and extender overcame some of the darkness as the alert chick watched us with wider pupils because of the dim light. The sense of the setting would have been lost had the image been brighter  -  more flash exposure. The minus 1/3 flash exposure fill light kept the scene more natural while allowing us to capture the birds. Usually fill flash exposure is lower at minus 1 or more. By the time we made this image we were probably close to 90 feet away from the cave. Light from a flash diminishes at a distance.

As we often say, photography is always a compromise with light, camera settings, subject location and nature itself.

Parrots are smart and adaptable. That is part of their appeal. Several parts of the U.S. have become home to escaped psittacines who found one another and established colonies. Feral parrots are controversial topic among birders and biologists.

On our recent trip to Florida we heard parrots talking (screeching) near our camp and followed the sound. The Nanday Parakeets (Nandayus nenday) were on wires observing and discussing the happenings at the RV dump station. They are also called Black-hooded Parakeets or Nanday Conures.

The day was gray and rainy. Several pair posed for us before flying off calling to the rest of their small flock. The Parakeets appeared as dark sillouettes until we opened exposures enough to see some of their color. This made the sky pale, which many consider uninteresting. In these images the blank background is not objectionable. Further increases in exposure in Photoshop were needed to see the red feathers that fringe their legs. The greens and turquiose colors were also helped by the increase in exposure though more digital noise is present. Photography is always a compromise.

Reddish Egrets (Egretta rufescens) are among the species discussed in the current (March-April 2013) issue of Audubon magazine. They are one of Audubon’s priority species because of its special habitat needs. Reddish Egrets live in the salt marshes and tidal flats othe southern U.S. and Mexico. These coastal marshes are under threat from development ant climate change.

At Fort Desoto County Park on Mullet Key south of St. Petersburg, Florida we had the unusual opportunity to photograph two of the three color morphs on the same beach. The white morph is sometime confused with Snowy and White Egrets. The bill is the easiest identifier. There is also a gray morph that can be confused with the Little Blue Heron, though the LBH is darker and does not have the pink on its bill. It would have been wonderful to also find a gray morph.

We would have liked to spend more time with these two birds (and the other species), especially getting to photograph behaviors like the wing spread in the top image. There was a family on the beach that allowed their children to chase the terns, gulls and egrets which were resting from the wind on the beach. The parents seemed to find their children’s inappropriate behavior amusing, even while we were quietly approaching birds. We decided pointing out that the children’s behavior was harassing the birds would have resulted in a confrontation rather than a teachable moment.

The cold weather holds and most birds seem to appreciate the heated bird waterer. This Tufted Titmouse landed on the branch above the heated waterer, looked down at the water and then took a bite of snow from the branch. Then it took a few more bites. The excess from the big bites is visible on its beak. It stayed a few minutes, continueing to eat the snow from the branch. With water less than a meter away, that seemed a bit strange. It looked down at the water several times but did not drop down to it.

There are comments in bird books and online that birds will eat snow when open water is not available. Clean water was available and this little bit of fluff chose to eat snow to get needed liquid. Of course, it may have been expending the extra energy to internally melt the snow because of the bird feeders near by. It had just enjoyed some bits of peanut before going to the water perch to eat snow.

Each autumn when the Dark-eyed Juncos (Junco hyemalis) arrive from the Northwoods, we date ourselves by humming the Gene MacLellan song, Snowbird, made famous by Anne Murray in 1970. As we watch them bouncing about, busily foraging, we refer to them as ‘jumpos.’ Mostly they stay on the ground, only briefly lighting on a branch or the Leopold bench, as they glean what the cardinals, nuthatches and woodpeckers drop.

Yesterday one of the Juncos, probably a female by her paler color, spent some time up on the cable that holds several feeders. We rarely see them on the wire. She was trying to keep her feet covered by her fluffed up feathers. She would bend forward to arrange the feathers around her feet and then fluff up some more, only to repeat it a few minutes later. Her pale pink beak made a nice counterpoint to the black, white and gray of this winter portrait.

In this morning’s email was a message with a photo taken from a hotel balcony along the southwest Florida coast. The white sand beach curved along cobalt water underneath a graduated blue sky. Here is Iowa, we looked out this morning on a marshmellow white world with snow still falling. We decided not to go to the workout at the gym. If we had we would have missed this lovely bird.

The Mourning Dove, who frequently visits, was perched on the wire from which we hang several feeders. She was huddled against the fluffy hat worn by the round squirrel baffle over the peanut feeder. Snow on her back made a lacey shawl. She heard the kitchen window open, something she has heard before, but did not fly. A Carolina Wren snatched a peanut from the feeder and flew to eat it in the crabapple tree.

She paid closer attention to the long lens (300mm with a 2x teleconverter) than to the 70-200 zoom. This one is full frame while the top image is a crop from the shorter lens’ file. She is still on the wire though she shook off the snow and is collecting a new covering.

When the snow lets up a bit we will put out ground feed for her and the Juncos who stop by. The heated bird water is a mini caldera with steep snow sides that needs to be pushed away. And of course, there will be shovelling that will take the place of the gym workout.

The Iowa winter eagle watch season began today with two watches along the Mississippi River. More are scheduled along Midwestern rivers over the next two months. With most of the rivers frozen over, the only open water is found below dams (both large and small) on the larger rivers. The open water below dams is usually a good fishing spot.

We will be at the Bald Eagle Watch & Expo to be held from 10-3 on Saturday February 9, 2013. The organizers invited us to have a table at the Expo with some of our images for sale. Most will be small ones of Bald Eagles on greeting cards. We have made some larger prints of a composite of a Bald Eagle in flight across the sky.

The head study above shows the sparkling golden eye of this fish eating eagle. Its beak is certainly made for slicing up fish and other food items.

After you have watched eagles at the outdoor viewing area, we would enjoy visiting with you at the Expo site: the Brown Deer Golf Club, 1900 Country Club Drive, Coralville, IA. There will be several speakers and presentations during the day. The viewing area will be at the Tailwater West Picnic Shelter, Coralville Lake. The event is sponsored by the Corps of Engineers which manages the lake/reservoir, and by a number of bird and outdoor organizations.

The Bald Eagle has made a remarkable population increase since DDT was banned. Their voices are no longer silent in winter, nor in spring.

One of the world’s largest owls, the Verraux’s Eagle Owl (Bubo lacteus) is uncommon, though wide-spread, through many parts of Sub-Saharran Africa. It, like many species, has several names: Giant Eagle Owl, Milky Eagle Owl. The name Milky (lacteus) refers to the creamy spots on the shoulders and small whitish markings. Besides its size and power, its most interesting physical characteristic is its hot pink eyelids. It is at the top of the bird food chain and has no real enemies.

On a night drive in northern Botswana, we were following the beam of light with which our tracker was stroking the trees and ground in hopes of finding nocturnal creatures. Suddenly high in a tree back from the track were a pair of eyes with the most amazing pink eyelids on a huge owl with giant feet. The owl continued to survey the ground around its perch. Photographing at night by spotlight is a challenge. Concerns about digital noise were put aside as the ISO was pumped up.

After admiring the owl for a few minutes, we continued on our way back to camp. Our guide said that the Giant Eagle Owl usually lives with its mate and one may be in a nearby tree. The tracker continued his search and, sure enough, another owl was just a short way from the first. Again we made a few images and then left them to their hunting.

The first owl (top photo) appeared to be larger than the second so is probably the female. Females may weigh between 5.5 to 6.9 lbs (2.5 to 3.1 kgs) and males from 3.5 to 4.4 lbs (1.6 t0 2 kg). The owls are 24-26 inches long (60 to 66 cm) and have a 55 inch (140 cm) wingspan. Both of these birds had their ear tufts flattened, though it is possible to see where they are above their eyes.

They prey upon birds of all sizes (including other large owls, Secretary Birds and large herons), small to medium mammals, reptiles, amphibians and insects. When they kill something they cannot carry, such as a warthog piglet, they will return to continue to feed on the carcass.

Verraux’s Eagle Owls nest during the southern hemisphere winter and often use the nests of other large birds. The female stays on the two eggs and is fed by the male for the five week incubation period and three week brooding period. The youngsters fledge at about two months of age but stay quiet and hidden for another three months while tended by their parents. They start independent hunting at about five months and may stay with their parents for several years. Family groups are sometimes found in daytime roosts.

The only thing better would have been to see and photograph a pair of Eagle Owls during the day.

One of the summer pleasures in southern Africa is the return of the Southern Carmine Bee-eaters (Merops nubicus nubicoides). We were as entranced by their beauty, as are most visitors to the Okavango Delta in Botswana at this time of year.

Photographing them was one of the many firsts of this trip. We encountered these sharing the feast of a termite nuptual flight with several swallow species, Fish Eagles and other birds. We will do a later post about the Fish Eagles catching termites on the ground. The rest were lacing the air with a mesh of wings as they captured the termites in flight.

There are two sub-species of Carmine Bee-eaters separated by a thousand kilometers. The Northern species has a greenish-blue throat like the top of the head. The Southern species’ throat is pink. They have similar three stage migrations in north-central and southern Africa. One area is for breeding and two other areas for winter and summer.

The bird above is a very handsome adult who has just raised its feathers at another bee-eater that also wanted this prime vantage point from which to hunt. It’s indignation is apparent in every defined feather.

Below is a mature adult and an immature. Sometimes adults would feed the younger birds who seemed just as adept at snatching termites from the air as their elders.