Photos taken at Leech Lake Minnesota Friday, September 27 into the early hours of Saturday, September 28, 2019. With a forecast of Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) there were lots of people out in the upper midwest to view and photograph the 'lights'. They were a little dim to the naked eye, but the camera recorded these with a 25 second exposure time at f/2.8, ISO 2000.

Dale Mills and I were honored tonight to receive an award for the 'Best Local Film' for our film 'A February Canoe Float' at the Iowa Independent Film Festival, among the six films that were screened tonight. It looked pretty good on the big screen.  I was a bit surprised because all of the films shown tonight were very good. I'm glad they liked ours.
(Produced, directed and edited by Bruce G. McKee, written and narrated by Dale Mills.)
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I took a short drive through the Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge near Prairie City, IA, looking for birds ( which were unusually scarce) and came face to face with this Bull Bison. You can drive through the Bison enclosure and if you're not careful you could have Bison right up to your car. This photo was take from the car with a telephoto lens while the Bison was still some distance away.

It was a quiet morning in the Ventura Marsh as I slid my kayak in to the water for an early morning paddle. Let me rephrase that. It was a calm morning, but anything but quiet. The air was alive with the sounds of hundreds of birds, frogs, toads and the hum of cars and motor boats in the distance. As I quietly paddled to try to get some photos the Great Blue Herons kept a watchful eye on me and noisily squawked their displeasure as they flew away long before I got close to them. When I paddled in close to the cattails I was thrilled to see several little Marsh Wrens. I really get a kick out of seeing them cling to two different cattails or blades of grass as they surveyed the area for bugs. The little Swamp Sparrows were seen in the same area. A couple of new birds for me were a 'Sora' ( I saw three) and a 'Virginia Rail'. They foraged in the shallow water at the base of the cattails and quickly disappeared in to the heavy cover as I approached. There were many Wood Ducks, but they saw me long before I saw them and all I really saw was their tail feathers as they made a quick getaway. As I paddled in and around the backwaters and channels of the floating cattail bogs there were dozens of birds that I could hear but didn't see including several Trumpeter Swans. A lone Osprey flew lazy circles overhead causing the ducks and Cormorants to scatter. A couple of years ago the DNR drained down the marsh to kill out the carp, but guess what, they're back. Several times a large carp would boil up next to the kayak and scared the whoop out of me. Fortunately I have a very stable hybrid kayak or I might have tipped as I jumped in my seat. All in all it was a beautiful morning to be out enjoying nature.
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A starry night and the covered bridge at Wilkenson Pioneer Park in Rock Falls lit by the bright moonlight. Look above the bridge in the second photo and you can see the Big Dipper. The glow on the horizon is from the moonlight lighting up the ground haze. Not visible this way to the naked eye, but records this way with the long exposure necessary to show the stars in the night sky.
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Cerro Cordo County Conservation is draining out all of the water from Zirble Slough to allow aquatic plants to get re-established for a better environment for birds and wildlife. Then they will allow it to naturally fill again. As the water is very low for awhile it has been full of shorebirds pecking in the mud for insects and whatever else they eat. There was a lot of wildlife there the morning that I visited.
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Last evening we had a North Iowa Photo Club outing to take photos of prairie flowers, birds insects and more in a private prairie in North Iowa. It was a beautiful evening and fun to see how the other photographers approached taking photos in this location. The highlight for me was first time photos of several Bobolinks and one Dickcissel, both are birds that normally only found in prairie areas. There was a nice fiery sunset to top off the evening.
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