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.

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!