Watery Wednesday: Tower Creek

On this years Yellowstone trip I spent quite a bit more time photographing scenery. Landscape photography is very different from photographing wildlife. When photographing wildlife much of your concern is to get the wildlife into your view finder hopefully in some descent light. Since most scenery does not really move, it becomes a lot more a matter of artistic expression when you are out doing landscape photography.
Because I was photographing a lot of static subjects this year, I spent a lot of time playing around with different shutter speed and aperture settings on this trip. A lot of the pictures did not turn out but that is the nice thing about shooting digital. I did like how this picture came out. This is Tower Creek shot at a shutter speed of 1/4 of a second. The slower shutter speed is what the picture the blurred look that gives the viewer a feeling for the motion of the water. Some photographers shoot rapids like this at even slower shutter speed but since I did not have a remote or cable release for the shutter it would be difficult to shoot any slower with out having some shake when the shutter release button on the camera was pushed.

My World: Celebration Park

Another location in the Snake River Birds of Prey NCA that we stopped at was Celebration Park.

Celebration Park was established in 1989 and is Idaho's only archaeological park. The park is situated on the banks of the Snake River and was the wintering grounds for the Paiute Indians. Rock face petroglyphs, drawn by Native Americans some 12,000 years ago, are the reason why the park was established.Unfortunately we did not have very much time, only a day and a half total in Idaho, so I did not have enough time to go and photograph the petroglyphs. Instead I spent most of my time at Celebration Park doing what I usually do, photographing the flora and fauna.

The thing that I photographed the most at Celebration Park were the Bullock's orioles. This was another new life bird that we photographed on this trip.

The area was very beautiful so I did stop photographing the birds long enough to get a few scenic shots.

Another new life bird that we photographed on this trip was the California quail. We found these birds in quite a few locations around Snake River.

There were also western meadowlarks singing in the fields surrounding the park. I have photographed western meadowlarks before but since we do not see them very often in eastern Minnesota we stopped when ever one was out in the open singing to take some pics.

The river plays an important role in forming the habitat of the park. As you went away from the park the area was very dry with low scraggly vegetation. Near the river, however, it was very green with a lot more trees then could be found else where.

The river itself also provided habitat for some birds. I spotted numerous spotted sandpiper searching the shallows looking for aquatic invertebrates to eat.

There was a bridge with a walking path that crossed over the river but we were not sure that it looked very safe so we decided just to stay on one side.

But the bridge, power lines and other man made structures also helped provide habitat for the local wildlife.
There were plenty of swallows there hunting insects that used the power lines to perch and take a rest. It was interesting because there were only a few barn and tree swallows around and a lot of bank and cliff swallows. We have all these types of swallows in Minnesota but mostly I see a lot of barn and tree swallows and rarely bank and cliff swallows. So it was interesting when birders from the convention showed up and were more interested in the barn and tree swallows. I guess we kind of take for granted the birds that are common in the area that we live.

Today's Flowers: Wild Lupine

In many parks that I visit, as well as some open fields and roadsides, the wild lupine is currently in bloom. Wild lupine is a perennial plant that is a part of the pea family. It is a stalky plat with each stalk producing numerous flowers that can be pink, white or blue.
Lupine grows primarily in dry and sandy soil which is open to partially shaded. Unfortunately do to loss of habitat wild lupine has declined significantly, primarily over the last 15 to 20 years.

Another reason for the loss of lupine, besides habitat destruction, is advancement in fire prevention and suppression. Wild fires clear out much of the undergrowth allowing perennials such as wild lupine to move in and thrive. With out fire, or some other method of clearing out the brush, the barrens and savannas are soon over taken by forests and shrubs and the wild lupine is not able to get enough light to continue.

Because it is an early bloomer wild lupine is important to many insects who have just hatched or come out of their winter hibernation and are looking for sustenance. Bees will drink nectar from the flowers as well as take pollen back to the hive to produce honey. The darker orange portion of the bees hind leg is its pollen sack. This is where it stores pollen so that it can take it back to the hive. If you look closely at the bee you can see small bits of pollen on its legs and over parts. This pollen often falls or rubs off while it is taking pollen from another plant. This is how many of our plants around the world are pollinated. Butterflies and other insects also come to the wild lupine in search of food.

Camera Critters: Ferruginous Hawk

Even though I am not really a bird lister and do not technically keep a life list, I do keep track of each new type of bird that I see and photograph. On our trip to Snake River and Yellowstone this year we were able to get pictures of several new types of birds.
One of the most exciting new birds that we photographed were the ferruginous hawks that were nesting out at Snake River Birds of Prey NCA. The ferruginous hawk is the largest hawk in North America with a wingspan of around four and a half feet and a weight of about two to four and a half pounds.

Ferruginous hawks are found in the western plains of the United States and parts of southern Canada. Their preferred habitat is unbroken grasslands with scattered trees and rock outcroppings. They hunt in several different ways but seem to prefer to attack their prey in a low skimming approach. Their food source consists mainly of rabbits and diurnal rodents, such as ground squirrels.

Because of the high quantity prey, mostly ground squirrels, that can be found in the area the Snake River Birds of Prey NCA has about 800 falcons, hawks, eagles and owls that nest in the area each year. Ferruginous hawks begin to nest in late April, in the southern part of their range, or May, for the rest of the range. The build stick nests in large trees, rock outcroppings or in transmission towers, as was the case with most of the nests that we saw at Snake River. In the past when bison roamed the area nest often included bison bones. The same nest is often used year after year with the nesting pair adding on to the nest each year, the same as bald eagles.

Day 365

Today is a bit of a milestone for the Ecobirder blog. Today is the 365th consecutive day that I have made a post. Before I began the blog I spent quite a bit of time looking at and reading other blogs. One thing that I noticed was the blogs that I kept going back to were blogs that had new content on a regular basis. When I started blogging it took me a while to figure things out and get them going but as I went along I was able to post with more frequency. Then last summer I decided to see how long that I could go with posting at least once every day. That was June 5th 2008 and here it is June 9th 2009 and I have not missed a day.
In celebration of this glorious occasion I give you this series of shots that I took last year at the Carpenter Nature Center of an olive-sided flycatcher who has caught himself a yellow jacket for dinner.

I am not sure how long my streak will continue, there are some days when the blog feels like another job, but either way I will continue do my best to bring you pictures, facts and stories that will inspire, educate and entertain you.

A Yellowstone Morning

Being on vacation in Yellowstone is like living a completely different life. At home my typical morning routine consists of getting up before the sun rises, making my lunch, and then driving off on the freeway through suburbia into the city on my way to work.
Our typical day in Yellowstone started off with a quick breakfast before we headed into the park as the sun began to rise. We would come in from the west entrance and would be greeted each morning with beautiful scenery like something off of a post card. One morning we just pulled off of the road and took a couple of pics.

Wordless Wednesday: A Bee-autiful Flight

Watery Wednesday: Bison Crossing

The American bison, often called buffalo, is the largest land mammal in North America. With weights averaging between 900 and over 2000 pounds there is not much that can get in the way of these massive behemoths.
But even the bison, with its huge head and powerful neck and legs, can have problems when crossing the snow melt fed rivers of Yellowstone. We captured these bison crossing the Madison River on the west side of Yellowstone. This was most likely a bachelor heard, males who do not yet have a harem of females to attend.

At this time of the year mixed herds, herds consisting mainly of female and young with a dominant bull, often gather together into a large herds to help protect the young calves from predators, such as bears, wolves and coyote. It is often difficult for these large herds to cross rivers at this time of the year because the current is frequently too strong for the young to make it safely across. This is one reason why you often find the bison on the road in Yellowstone, because it is often the easiest path to travel.

My World: Dedication Point

For the past few years we have added a couple of extra days on to our vacation so that we could take a small side trip to some good birding locations on our way to or back home from Yellowstone. This year we ventured over to the Snake River Birds of Prey Natural Conservation Area located near Boise, ID.

The Snake River Birds of Prey NCA is an area of private and public lands around the Snake River in Idaho that has a large concentration of nesting raptors. The reason for the large raptor population is the large number of prey animals, especially ground squirrels, that are found in the area.

One of the recommended places to visit in the Snake River Birds of Prey NCA is dedication point.

From the road, dedication point did not look like much. It appeared to be just some trails leading off through the prairie, but when you got a little way down the trail you could see what made Dedication Point special.
The point stands atop the cliffs of a wide gorge which had been carved out over ages by the Snake River below.

A little way further down the Snake River sits the Swan Falls Dam which provides most of the electricity for the area.

Although the view from Dedication Point is amazing the real draw of the point are the raptors which nest on surrounding cliffs.

While we were there the only nest that we spotted was a red-tailed hawk nest which was too far aware to get any descent pics, but it was interesting to get pics of the hawks as they flew over our heads.

Even more interesting is when the hawks would fly by at eye level giving us some nice looks of their eyes, wings and red tail feathers.

Coolest by far was when they would fly below us. It is not often that you get to see the top of a hawk as he is in flight.

There were also some prairie falcon flying around but they would not come close enough for me to get a good shot. This was unfortunate, I had hoped to get some good prairie falcon pics, since the Snake River has the highest nesting population of prairie falcons in the world, but we only were able to see them from a distance. I may have to make a trip out to the Dakotas this summer to try for prairie falcon.

There was plenty of other wildlife around Dedication Point including ground squirrels and jack rabbits.

We also spotted several different lizards like this one that was sitting contemplating life on the edge of the cliff. I wonder if he was thinking about jumping because he did not get the part in the Gieko commercials.