Continuing with our July 4th riverside walk, we found many Snow Egrets along the South Platte. After trolling through the mud, the egret on the left had just caught a crawdad. One may see the crawdad in the egret’s bill.
Snowy Egret, Catching Crawdad.
Near Reynold’s Landing, another Snowy Egret was rock hopping close to the water’s edge. The Snowy Egret can be distinguished from other egrets by their yellow feet.
Snowy Egret, No 2, Rock Hopping.
Here this egret is wading among the rocks. This bird is in its breeding plumage, with those long plumes on its chest, neck and rump.
Snowy Egret, No 2, Wading.
As the egret was rock hopping, it had stopped behind the foreground rock, with its bill partly open. Maybe it had just caught some prey?
Snowy Egret, Behind Rock.
Here is the final image of the Snowy Egret, looking down into the water below the frame.
On July 4th, we headed down to the Platte River to do some birding. We saw a variety of birds. So, best to get the images out there before the month ends! Soon after arriving at Reynold’s Landing, we found a Great Blue Heron and Night Heron standing on the rocks at the water’s edge out in the middle of the river. The Great Blue was just spreading its wings for this image.
Great Blue Heron And Night Heron, South Platte.
Soon after continuing to walk along the riverside, the Great Blue moved to a rock on the far bank.
Great Blue Heron On Rock, South Platte.
We continued along the riverside. Several hundred yards farther downstream we came across another Great Blue Heron. In this image, I managed to capture the bird cleaning itself. It had stretched its neck to reach upper body, exposing those long plumes in the process.
Great Blue Heron No2, Cleaning.
All this while standing on one leg!
Great Blue Heron, Standing One Leg.
I like the pose of the heron as it was looking out across the water.
Great Blue Heron, No 2, Standing Guard.
When we had returned to Reynold’s Landing, Heron #1 had moved into the water. Apparently, the waterway was very busy all day with tuber’s running down the river. Most of the tuber’s had left before we arrive. So now it was the opportunity for birds to return to the water again. It this image, the setting sun backlit most of the birds in the waterway. Here, the sun lit up the heron’s bill.
Great Blue Heron No 1, In The River.
I made several images of other birds, that will follow.
Comet Neowise has been visible in the night sky for several nights after being discovered in late March. In the last couple of weeks, Neowise has been visible in the evening skies rather than in the morning skies. On Sunday night, we headed out to Bennett to view the comet. We found a location about 15 miles north of Bennett and proceeded to search for Neowise. After a few minutes of scanning the night sky with binoculars, we found the comet with a long tail streaming away from the sun. I managed to make one decent image of Neowise.
Comet Neowise, Bennett, Sunday.
The image above was over-exposed, but I managed to make a reasonable image after post-processing. I had not setup my camera correctly to preview the captured image. The biggest challenge of night photography is to focus the lens at infinity. I had also failed to do this successfully, so the stars and comet are not perfectly sharp.
Yesterday, I prepared my camera well beforehand to focus on infinity and taped the lens to lock the focus. I headed back towards Bennett. There was a bank of clouds to north of I-70, so I headed south on the road towards Kiowa. This would increase the separation between the clouds and comet. Having found a convenient stop, I setup and pointed towards the faint crescent of the new moon as it was setting towards the mountains. I used this to opportunity to check and tweak the infinity focus. The waiting game then started… While waiting for Neowise to become visible, several thunderstorms were lighting up the cloud bank to the north. In this image, I managed to capture the glow from lightning strikes inside the clouds.
Thunderstorm After Sunset, Bennett.
After waiting for the night sky to darken, comet Neowise started to become visible. During the next hour, I made several images of the comet. The thunderstorm was busy lighting up the cloud bank to the north. In this image, I was fortunate to capture the comet with the thunderstorm lighting up the cloud bank.
Comet Neowise And Thunderstorm, Bennett.
In this final image, I just included comet Neowise and the night sky.
Comet Neowise And Night Sky, Bennett.
The comet can be seen after the sun has set in the north-west of the sky. As the moon becomes brighter and rises in the sky, the comet will be more difficult to see during the coming week,
Yesterday, we headed down to the South Platte River to do some birding. At this time of the year, many of the birds have finished breeding and their young offspring have left their nests. We found this baby chickadee that was being fed by both parents.
Baby Chickadee, Waiting For Food, Number 1.
We were busy watching this bird as the parents flew across the river in search of bugs to feed hungry mouth.
Baby Chickadee, Waiting For Food, Number 2.
Walking farther along the Platte, we found this Mallard mother and four duckling paddling in the river. It is always fun watching Mallard ducklings on the water. They scoot across the water until they run out of steam. Then they take a break to recover, and repeat.
Mallard Mother And Ducklings.
Soon after this, we headed back and were assaulted by mosquitoes. Enjoy!
During the current pandemic, we often get out for a bike ride along trails to get physical exercise, usually in the late afternoon. Typically, this is a great time to ride, with low afternoon sun that provides great light. Recently, while riding along the Bear Creek trail, I noticed an American Kestrel hanging out close to a pond at the trail-side.
Yesterday, I re-visited the pond to see what bird life was to be found. As usual there were several male Red-Winged Blackbirds calling out for mates. This pond is located behind a fence at the trail-side. Around the pond are reeds and cat-tails, that is the typical habitat where these birds nest. Several male birds were perching from the cat-tails, but periodically they flew over to perch on the fence.
Red-Winged Blackbird On Fence.
Here is one male blackbird hanging from a cat-tail stalk.
Red-Winged Blackbird On Cat Tails.
A few female Red-Winged Blackbirds were hopping through the low reeds encompassing the pond. This was one of the first images that I managed to capture of a female bird.
Female Red-Winged Blackbird.
Most of the birds were accustomed to pedestrians and bikers make use of the trail. This proved to be easy to get close to the birds. One could approach to within 15 feet of the birds before they moved away.
Red-Winged Blackbird On Cat Tail, No 2.
This female blackbird was busy retrieving long grasses from the side of the trail. She had perched on a reed, with a mouthful of grass. It looked like she was busy building a nest, but I never got to see the nest. It was probably hidden deep near the base of the reeds.
Female Red-Winged Blackbird With Nesting Material.
The bird flew across the trail and returned back to the reeds.
Mouthful Of Grass.
I love the expression on her face while having a mouthful of grass. This is my favorite image of the day.
This afternoon we headed out to Westerly Creek, to get some exercise and do some birding, while practicing social distancing. One of the first birds we encountered was this Say’s Phoebe sitting on a concrete sculpture.
Say’s Phoebe, On Concrete Sculpture.
We encountered several Phoebes during the course of the afternoon. This one was perched on one of the low trees.
Say’s Phoebe, Westerly Creek.
Phoebe’s are flycatchers. Periodically, these birds leave their perch to feed on flies and other bugs, and then return to their perch. I was fortunate to make one image of this bird in flight.
Say’s Phoebe, Leaving Perch.
While catching bugs, this bird perched on different trees as we walked along the trail. I this image, the bird tilted his head as he watched me!
Say’s Phoebe, Perched In Tree.
There were several Robins in the area. This one was rummaging around the undergrowth near one of the trails.
American Robin, Westerly Creek.
I made this image as the bird gazed at me.
American Robin, Westerly Creek, No 2.
We saw many other birds during the couple of hours that we spent at the creek.
This afternoon, we headed out to do some birding along the South Platte River. In one of the nearby ponds, we found a mating pair of Mallards.
Mallard, Mating Pair.
While making some images, the female Mallard started flapping her wings. I was fortunate to capture a few images. In this image, we can see the purple speculum, which is a distinctive feature of Mallards.
Female Mallard, Flapping Wings.
When we arrived at the river, a pair of Common Mergansers were swimming up stream. Later we found the pair on one of the rock, busy preening themselves. This is one if the images that I captured.
Common Merganser, Mating Pair.
The male had long since finished preening himself. The female had been preening for some 15 minutes.
A female Mallard was swimming past the rock. The male Merganser seemed to say “Stay Away From Our Rock” to the Mallard.
Stay Away From Our Rock
One of the many bikers had walked down to the river. I captured this image of his reflection in the water
Biker Reflection.
Angela called out that a Cormorant was in flight. This was the only image that I managed to capture, after the bird had flown past me.
Cormorant, In Flight.
We only saw one Canada Goose along this stretch of the river.
Just This One Canada Goose.
Heading back to the truck, we passed the pair of Mergansers. By now they had split off onto two separate rocks. The male had moved to an adjacent rock.
Common Mergansers, On Separate Rocks.
The mail may have moved to the adjacent rock to get away from the shaking of the rock caused by the vigorous preening of the female!!!
Continuing from the last post, here are some images from my trip to the National Wildlife Refuge at Monte Vista. During one morning, this crane was “Scratching His Itch” while feeding at the corn fields.
Scratching My Itch.
During one afternoon, a pair of Northern Harriers were searching for prey while flying low over this corn field. I made several images of these Harriers as they made repeated passes over the fields.
Northern Harrier Above Corn Field.
The ponds at the Refuge, had many male Red-Winged Blackbirds perched on the Cat Tails. At this time of the year they are calling out to attract females, and occasionally feeding off the Cat Tails.
Red Winged Blackbird, On Cat Tails.
In the early morning, the ponds were iced over after nights below freezing. There were several holes in the ice that were occupied by Canada Geese and American Coots. I managed to capture this image as the Coot leapt into flight, probably to escape the close confines of those two geese.
Coot And Canada Geese.
As usual, enjoy these images of the wonderful world around us. Keep healthy and safe.
