A Morning on the Refuge

I left early to be at Squaw Creek NWR at sunrise this morning. The forecast is for colder and wetter weather over the next few weeks, and I wanted to get the chance to shoot the birds before they migrated further south.

The morning stayed overcast, so the light wasn't great. Also, the geese are not roosting at the refuge. The water levels are low, with some of the marshes dry. The reports are that the geese are staying nearby as some deeper lakes.

But that didn't mean that there weren't lots of opportunities to see and photograph wildlife. There are over 100 swans on the refuge, tens, of not hundreds, of thousands of ducks, pelicans, coots and the local songbirds and deer as well. The slideshow below will show you the best images from the morning.




All images were taken with the Nikon D7000 / Nikkor 300mm f/4 / TC1.4 combination. Processing was done with PhotoMechanic / ACR / CS6 Photoshop.

Enjoy the birds !

At the Refuge

Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge is north of Kansas City. It is a primary stop over in the fall for migrating waterfowl. This is the prime season to visit in order to observe and photograph the migratory birds. Right now there are over 200,000 snow geese, over 100,000 ducks and various other coming through such as swans, hawks, bald eagles and pelicans. You can see the latest count survey here. And along with the visitors there are many native wild residents.

It was a beautiful day in the 60's. The skies were clear and the breeze was gentle.

I hope you enjoy the images!

Late Sun

On Alert

Swans

Waxing Moon

The details: Nikon D7000 & Nikkor 300mm f/4 + TC1.4 (effective focal length 420mm). Post in PhotoMechanic, ACR 7.3 and CS6.

YES.... 'Waxing Moon' is a composite. But both images were shot with the same rig from the same location. I was not able to catch the geese crossing the moon, but I had several good images of geese and the moon and it was natural to combine the two. It was very easy as the scale was the same and sky colors matched almost exactly.

First Day of Winter

After a warm fall, we are seeing a rather cold and gray December.  We are not anticipating a White Christmas, but many areas west of Kansas City will see a major winter snowstorm starting tonight and running through Christmas day.

I drove up to Squaw Creek NWR yesterday.  The winter has truly arrived.  There was quite a bit of snow remaining on the ground.  The marshes are frozen and the migrating geese and ducks have moved on south.  The only waterfowl we encountered were two pair of swans that we saw fly by a couple of times.

The eagle was the first one that we encountered on the refuge. It was sheltering in a tree near the entrance to the refuge. There were only a few eagles left of the 150-200 that were there a few weeks ago. The covered lane is a connecting road between two portions of the refuge.

Photo Adventure - Squaw Creek NWR

Sunday dawned gray, but the day quickly turned into broken sun and clouds. I decided to take a drive up to Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge. It is one of the prime waterfowl and eagle watching spots in the midwest during the fall migration. We are far enough south that it serves as an over-wintering spot for eagles.

The waterfowl migration is well underway. Over 80,000 Snow and Blue Geese reported on the refuge. Over 20,000 ducks, dark geese, coots, etc. in addition. The eagle migration is behind schedule. We saw a dozen to two dozen birds on one section of the refuge. There was only one in adult plumage, but the younger eagles were fighting over food which was interesting to watch.

This was just a scouting trip. I've got to work on my wildlife technique as well!