Young Pup

 Quite busy at work,so outing have been scarce lately.On Saturday headed out in search of Eagles and Waterfowl .While moving from one spot to another came across a young grey pup seal still in it's white coat,left behind after the ice moved out from the shore.

 So I gathered my camera and crawled towards her not to frighten her,spent about 20 minutes with her before moving on to let the pup rest.

Took few photos of her I'll post later as the new computer is having problems posting images???

young grey seal pup

Birding in a river bed

 Well, while looking for a sparrow hawk I saw fly by, I came across a small ravine with mostly old trees and a few maples. While in the ravine I saw my first bohemian waxwing up close. After getting a few shots, I went over to see what she was eating.
 I leaned on an old tree and then heard a noise. I looked up to see a hairy woodpecker looking down on me.
 The next morning I went back to check for them again. Luckily, I saw the woodpecker knocking away. Never saw the waxwing again, hopefully my hawk never saw her either.

Who's out there?

hairy woodpecker

bohemian waxwing

Juvenile day out

 Decided to stay an extra day in Sydney before heading back home, lucky for me. We got together to feed the eagles and started out strong. A few older eagles came in, then the juvenile showed up, (4 young ones and 1 almost completely colored). The juveniles were a little hesitant at first but in no time started to come in for the fish.

 Unfortunately, the other photographer, Larry Kelly, hadn't come out that morning. I know we have been waiting a few days for the juveniles to come in to get some good shots. His name came up quite a few times while we were feeding and Wayne Gouthro would joke as the young ones passed by. But I know that Larry will be back there and get a ton of shots before I get back again.
 Here are a few shots from Saturday:

young juvenile making a pass

two young juveniles fighting over a meal

almost fully colored dropping in 

Chasing the eagles

Well, decided to hang around the quickly disappearing ice in the inlet where I've been seeing a few eagles before all the ice breaks up. Had a few great days the last week with about 3-8 eagles regularly visiting for about 11/2hours every day. Only have about 1 more week before the ice all disappears. The nikon d90 seems to work well as does the sigma 150-500. I also spent 2 days with my 70-200 f2.8. Really liked it when the eagles came in extra close. Here are a few close shots taken with the 70-200.

passing by

coming in for a meal

Little Girl

Well, the weather has been terrible the past week with huge amounts of snow and wind so sitings were almost nil except for a female northern harrier who has been hanging around in the swamp following the sparrows. Finally got out for a drive Saturday so I went to check on my honey hole for merganser. There were about 8-10 in the hole so I got a few shots. 1 female refused to leave the hole even after the rest flew off as the cars passed by. Took a few shots of her. As I was leaving, a fellow photographer was passing through so I waved her over to get a few shot of her own. Here are a few shots of the female posing.



posing for the camera



 

young female common merganser



stormy visitor

Yesterday we had a big wind and a rain/snow mix storm. With all the weather a few songbirds hung around the feed attracting a female juvenile northern harrier hawk in the morning. All of the wind gave a few chances to get a shot of her. Finally got lucky before sunset and got a few pictures of her playing in all the wind. Hopefully she'll be back tomorrow. I already put more feed out to keep the birds around.

young female soaring 

coming in to check me out

still looking for a meal

Birds in the cold

Successful outings would be the words of the week! Just back from a few days of shooting in Sydney. Started off the mornings shooting waterfowls then, by midday, went chasing bald eagles and finished off the afternoons at the bird feeders shooting song birds.
Not much ice so the ducks were scattered around but, with a few decoys, managed to get a few photos. The bird feeders started off slow but, with the snow falls, really picked up. As for the eagles, have to really thank another photographer, Larry Kelly of Sydney as well as Wayne Gouthro; 2 great guys with great stories who are very welcoming and willing to share their spot where we see 5 eagles regularly (sometimes more). Got lots of photos and had lots of laughs in between rushes of birds.
Here are a few of the photos from the outings.

few mallards passing by

female red breasted merganser 

male goldeneye

bluejay

chickadee 

golden finches

woodpecker

bald eagle checking us out

pair eagles soaring

eagle coming over train tracks