The bad news: The Sportsman’s Warehouse is closing. I will be losing one of the most enjoyable jobs that I’ve ever had.
The good news: I purchased the Nikon ED50 Fieldscope that I have been using. I had over $800 in gift cards for Sportsman’s so I collected them all up and purchased the ED50 and a Remington 870 shotgun.
So after a very hectic week I drove north to Moraine State Park and Lawrence County for the morning. I was excited to have this new scope and really wanted to see what shots I could get today. My first stop at Moraine was the South Shore Day-use Area. Within minutes of pulling into a parking area, I got some great shots of Killdeer and a few coots.
Further up the cove of the day use area, I spotted some movement in the water. The movement turned out to be a large raft of mixed diving ducks. There were close to 100 in the group which was made up of Ringneck Ducks, Redheads, Greater and Lesser Scaup plus a few Ruddy Ducks.
From the South Shore area I moved on to the boat launch at McDaniel’s Road. Last year around this time I got shots of a pair of Osprey that were nesting less than 150 yards from the launch itself. What do you supposed greeted me when I pulled up today? A Bald Eagle!!!! He was just a handful of yards away from the nest that the osprey used last year, perched on a tree enjoying the morning sun. I’ve seen my share of bald eagles over the years but this was the first close enough for me to digiscope clearly.
The bald eagle wasn’t my only good fortune, while I was at that boat launch area, I also got some good shots of an eastern bluebird that was flying from nest box to nest box looking for love. This was the first chance that I’ve had to get bluebird pictures so with this plus the eagle, I was happy with my success for the day.
I left the state park and made my way to a few spots in Lawrence County that I’d heard about through the PA Birds mailing list. I’d never been in this area before so I had no idea what to expect, I was just out driving through the countryside to see what I could find. I eventually found a small pond with a small flock of Ringneck Ducks which I got some very good pictures of, better than most that I’ve gotten before this.
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