Nine-Mile Run and My Yard. Sunday, March 1, 2009

One of the benefits of working at the Sportsman’s Warehouse is being able to borrow different equipment for field testing. I have been wondering how much of a difference ED or Extra Low Dispersion glass in a spotting scope would make in my pictures. It just so happens that we had a Nikon ED50 spotting scope in stock so I borrowed it for a few days.



I decided to make a trip to Nine-Mile Run on the Monongahela River in Pittsburgh. I knew that I could find something there even if it is just a few mallards. When I arrived shortly after sunrise, I was surprised to find a Great Blue Heron, two Double Crested Cormorants and some Ring-Billed Gulls in addition to the usual mallards. I quickly set-up the equipment and got to shooting. I didn’t have much time to play around however because, as usual, I had things to take care of at home.



After about 90 minutes of taking pictures and testing my original fieldscope in comparison to the ED50 fieldscope I had to pack up and leave. When I got home, I downloaded the pictures to my computer and went on with my chores. It wasn’t until later in the afternoon that I was able to check out the pictures from the morning. Wow!!! What a difference!!! The colors are much more true to life, the image has more crispness and chromatic aberration has just about been eliminated!!! I was truly surprised, especially since the ED50 scope is physically smaller and doesn’t pass as much light as my 60mm fieldscope. I decided immediately to throw on a coat, set up the camera equipment and sit in the yard for a while to see what else I could get shots of that day.



I guess you could say that I got lucky in my yard this afternoon. I was able to get pictures of Tufted Titmice, Robins, Black-Capped Chickadees, House Sparrows, Dark-Eyed Juncos, Mourning Doves, White-Breasted Nuthatches, Downy Woodpeckers and Red-Bellied Woodpeckers. I’ve already gotten pictures of most of these species with my regular scope so I was able to compare the results of both fieldscopes. Let’s just say that I have got to get me one of these.

My Yard, February 15, 2009

I was off from both jobs today. I had a lot of chores to do so I didn’t really plan on doing much digiscoping. However, I found out that today was one of the days for The Great Backyard Bird Count which is run every year by the Cornell Lab of Orinthology and the National Audobon Society. The Great Backyard Bird Count is used as a study of bird populations thoughout North America. You could also submit your pictures for a chance to win a few prizes. I figured why not, so I set aside an hour to sit in the yard near my feeders to see what I could come up with.



Even though I didn’t get pictures of everything, I enjoyed the afternoon. The full list of what I saw is:
Red-Tailed Hawk – 1
Red-Bellied Woodpecker – 2
Downy Woodpecker – 3
Blue Jay – 2
American Crow – 117
Black-Capped Chickadee – 4
Tufted Titmouse – 12
American Tree Sparrow – 8
Song Sparrow – 3
Northern Cardinal – 3
House Sparrow – 12



For more information on the Great Backyard Bird Count, go to http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc/ .

National Aviary Pittsburgh, February 2, 2009

Since the Steelers played in the Super Bowl on February 1, I decided to take February 2 off of work to recover. My idea of recovery was to spend a few hours at the National Aviary on Pittsburgh’s North Side. If you have never been there, it is a very interesting place to visit. It is broken up into different habitats for various species of birds. You could pretty much call it a zoo for birds.



I arrived shortly after the aviary opened for the day, it wasn’t very crowded so there were times that I had the place almost all to myself. I got all sorts of pictures including Brown Pelicans, Boat Billed Herons, Wood Ducks, Flamingos, Scarlet Ibis, Spoonbills, Harlequin Ducks, Hooded Mergansers, Inca Terns and many other species.



I monkeyed around here for over 3 hours getting shots of just about anything I could see. It was a great, relaxing day.

Mouth of the Beaver River, Rochester/Bridgewater, PA Sunday Feb 2, 2009

I had heard through the PA Birds Mailing list that there was a large flock of Canvasbacks and a few Redheads in the open water where the Beaver River meets the Ohio River in the Rochester/Bridgewater area of Beaver County in western PA.

Each year you usually see a few of these diving ducks around here so they aren’t extremely rare but to have numbers like this is rare.

I had only previously seen these two species once before and that was at Duck Hollow last year. I couldn’t get any decent pictures of them then so I was determined to get some today.

If you don’t know, a diving duck will actually dive under the water to eat small fish, plants, mollusks and other critters. Dappling Ducks such as mallards, rarely if ever dive under the water, they usually just tip over with their fanny sticking out of the water. From what I’ve heard, divers actually look like they are flying under the water as they swim around looking for food. I’ve never seen it but I would love to get pictures of it.

A large raft of canvasbacks was about 150 yards off shore just feeding like crazy, I guess that you could call it a feeding frenzy. Because there was so much activity going on with these ducks I couldn’t get an accurate count. I tried three times to count the ducks and each time came up with a different number, the first was 83, the second was 80 and the third was 81. I’ll stick with the count of 81 Canvasbacks which is an incredible number of this species for this area.

I was just happily taking the pictures when I noticed that I was finally getting cold, the camera battery was running low and the memory card was filling up. I decided to walk back to the truck and head for home. On the way back to the truck I caught site of a few Canvasbacks very close to shore. I would be able to get some good shots of these guys if I didn’t spook them. I took my time, crawled towards them and was rewarded with some very good shots of drake Canvasbacks.

As I was nearing the truck, I again caught site of something on the river. I used the binos to check it out and spotted 5 Redheads resting not far off of the boat dock near where I was parked. I was able to get some shots of these guys too.



Finally the battery was dead, I was frozen and the memory card was full. It was time to head for home to rest up before watching a little football game this evening.

Oh, the football game? The Steelers won the Super Bowl.

Nine-Mile Run, January 24, 2009

I had heard that there were some Gadwall visiting at the mouth of Nine-Mile Run on the Monongahela River just south of Pittsburgh so I took a quick ride to check them out.

Unfortunately, the lighting wasn’t very good and the Gadwall wouldn’t cooperate so the pictures that I got of them were not very good. Still I’ll take them until I can get some better shots.

I also got some good shots of a few Mallards. The three people that regularly read my blog know that I’ve taken so many pictures of Mallards that I only bother with them when I can get better than average shots.

My Yard January 18, 2009

I had some free time but no good scouting reports mainly because all of the lakes and ponds in the area were frozen. I decided just to sit in the yard and see what I could get from the bird feeders there. It was cold so I layered up and sat under the deck with the camera.

I got some good shots of Song Sparrows, Dark-eyed Juncos, Tufted Titmice, Black-Capped Chickadees, Mourning Doves and Northern Cardinals.

I was patient enough to watch the song sparrows to see where they were going. It turns out that they had some roosts or nests under my neighbor’s deck. Each time they would come back out to feed they would perch on the lattice on the edge of the deck before going to the feeders. I was lucky enough to get a few shots of them sitting there, staging before their snack.

Moody Road Ponds, Imperial, PA. January 4th, 2009

I’ve finally had some time to update this page so here we go.

I had heard through my scouting reports on the PA Birds mailing list that there were some unique species visiting the ponds at Moody Road in Imperial, PA. I made the effort to get out there to see what I could find and if I would be lucky enough to see them. According to the reports, there were four snow geese( two white phase and two blue phase) plus four greater White-Fronted Geese and some Cackling geese at the ponds.





Greater White Front Geese



I arrived before sunrise and was happy to see that all of these geese were there in addition to many Canada Geese. The geese that I was after were over 200 yards away so the pictures weren’t as good as I like but they’ll work for me until I can get better shots of them.



Snow Geese, Note the color differences.


Each of these species is relatively rare for this area of Pennsylvania so I was happy just to see them. Cackling Geese might be a once every few years visitor to the area. They were pretty interesting too. They looked just like a small Canada Goose, roughly the size of a Mallard.

While I was taking my pictures of the Cackling Geese, I noticed something else on the pond, a group of 6 Black Ducks. Again these are a relative rarity for this area.

So based on what I saw and the pictures that I got, even though they weren’t up to snuff, it was a good morning for me.


Cackling Geese, 5 Black Ducks and a Canada Goose thrown in for scale. The cackling geese are in the front.