Moraine State Park and Lawrence County, March 15, 2009

Well I got some good news and some bad news this week.

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.

Bridgewater and North Park, March 7, 2009

I'm back from my hiatus. Yes, I haven't had much time to update this and I'm at least 12 posts behind so let's get started.

I’ve mentioned here before that there was a flock of Canvasbacks and Redheads at the mouth of the Beaver River for most of the winter. I still had the Nikon ED50 Fieldscope so I decided to take a little ride this morning to see if I could get some shots of them with this loaner scope.



When I got to the Bridgewater area I was surprised to find that there were quite a large number of Scaup, both Lesser and Greater, in the water as well. Most of the ducks were relatively close to shore so I did what I needed to do to get as close as possible to them. I’d take a few pictures then move a little closer, repeating as much as possible. In the end I got within 30 yards of the ducks on the river. That’s not very bad considering that these ducks are very wary.



While I was playing around with the ducks, I saw a Robin in a tree near me so I took a few pictures of him as well.



After about 2 hours of playing around here, I saw that it was time to move closer to home. I had to pick up my brother’s dog (Cousin Buddy the Chocolate Lab) around 11 am so that my brother and his family could go on vacation for a week. I drove to North Park to see what I could find there.

When I arrived at North Park I was surprised to find that there was still some ice left on the water of both lakes. I drove on to Marshall Lake which is one of my regular stops just to kill some time; I had a little over an hour left to play. I was quite pleased to get pictures of another Robin, an American Tree Sparrow and a Northern Mockingbird.

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.