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Three of my photos have been accepted to the 39th Annual Cerro Gordo County Photo Show at the Charles H. MacNider Museum, this year. Such an honor among so many great local photographers. It is always fun to see the works of others in this show. The show runs until the end of June, I hope you can go see it.
You can see these photos and previous entries here.
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I spent the morning with four sleepy fox kits. They pretty much slept the whole time that I was watching them. It was a bright nearly full moon last night so they were probably out playing or feeding in the moonlight and worn out from their night time adventures. (Photos from the car at about 50 yards. I did not get out of the car.) Click images to see larger.      Click images to see larger.
I spent a morning with a couple of puffed up Great Horned Owlets, in north Iowa, stretching their legs and wings and probably getting close to fledging the nest. We had a bit of a staring contest from about 30 yards away. I watched for about 3 1/2 hours and did not see any adult owls, but I'm sure that they saw me and were keeping their distance. [Click images to see larger, and play the video below.]      Watch the video: While in Nebraska I went out looking for Snow Geese. There are often large numbers (hundreds of thousands) at Loess Bluffs National Wildlife Refuge in NW Missouri or Desoto National Wildlife Refuge north of Council Bluffs, Iowa in March, but they were both flooded and the roads were closed. I found a few thousand way out in a wetlands about a quarter of a mile from the road, and did see a few fly by, but not huge numbers I was hoping for.     A male Sharp-tailed Grouse [click to see larger] I have never seen Sharp-tailed Grouse, so since I was going to be in in Nebraska to photograph cranes I made reservations with Calamus Outfitters in central Nebraska near Burwell to go out in a blind before sunrise to photograph the Sharp-tailed Grouse doing their courting activities. To the left is a male Sharp-tailed Grouse, trying to impress a female. Their mating display includes loud clucking vocalizations along with a little shuffling of the feet dance, pointing their tail feathers straight up in the air, putting their head low to the ground, puffing out their purple neck sacks and spreading their wings. There may be several males doing this display at one time to entice a female and hopefully the opportunity to breed. It happens on a grassy prairie area called a 'Lek', very early in the morning before sunrise, the end of March and early April. They are very similar to Prairie Chickens. We walked quietly out to the blind in the dark to get ready to watch and photograph the display. The lek was on a grassy knoll and here was a stiff wind blowing from the north so of course most of the birds were on the other side of the knoll where we couldn't see them from the blind. We could hear them clucking and only a few came up to the top of the rise where we could see them and get some photos. [Click the images to see larger, and view the video below]      Video - Male Sharp-tailed Grouse doing their mating dance, trying to impress a female:  I have made multiple trips to central Nebraska over the years to photograph Sandhill Cranes. This year was a late spring in the area and the cranes didn't come in to the Platte River until late and bunched up more than they have in years past. There were record numbers at one time estimated at around 650,000 cranes the week that I was there the last week of March. It is always an amazing sight to see and hear, even more so when there are so many. The have an interesting dancing ritual where they puff their chest out, spread their wings and jump straight up in the air - often chest to chest with another crane. This can be territorial, establishing social relationships and/or bonding. See the last three photos and the video below. [Click images to see larger]               Video of Sandhill Cranes dancing: |
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July 2024
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