Odds & Ends

Not having neither the time or the energy to put much thought into a post, I decided instead to share some unrelated photos.

I was a little surprised to see Great Blue Herons building nest during my early March visit to Middle Creek.  The rookery was too far away from the road to allow great shots and getting any closer was unlawful so I had to be satisfied with what was available.  Shooting with the 600mm lens I could see from viewing the camera LCD that the shots were soft.  Resorting to manual focus and using live view at 10x zoom the resulting images were sharper.

These mallards may look no different than your friendly everyday park ducks but they fully understand the dangers that humans present.  The nearest hen has already spotted me and at the first click of the shutter they exploded into the air. 

This crow seems to understand that I mean it no harm but gaging from the intent stare it isn't entirely trusting either.

Crow

There are two species of crow that inhabit the eastern US, America Crows and Fish Crows.  Since I am more concerned with photography than with birding I will not attempt to identify which species I captured in these photos.

I will say that I have found crows to be exceedingly difficult birds to photograph.  The crow's all black coloration coupled with a black eye makes it very difficult to capture eye detail.

Harassment: Avian Style

I watched as the eagle arrived at the lake swooping in low over the water.  Soon a lone crow flew out from the woodland beginning to harass the eagle with very close fly-bys, better described as dive-bombing, while calling loudly.

A number of crows nest in these woods each spring and I would expect that this crow was defending its nesting territory. 

After a few minutes of rapid fire action the eagle flew over the nearby mountain top, apparently looking for somewhere where the "locals" didn't object to its presence.

Observing wildlife interact makes the days afield all the more enjoyable, being able to capture a photo is always a bonus!

Crow: A Wary Subject, Most of The Time

With a brutal winter wind howling outside and temperatures well below freezing it feels good to sit here in a warm house working on photographs from my Florida visit.  The crow is not a particularly spectacular bird.  The crow doesn't exhibit colorful breeding plumage, it doesn't posses a graceful charm  but what the crow lacks in beauty it more than makes up for it with it's incredible intelligence.

Crows have learned to adapt to nearly all habitats and have adapted extremely well to the environmental changes made by humans.  The crow is at home in the wilderness, rural fields and woodlands as well as in our cities.  With a lifespan that can reach 30 years the crow can acquire significant learning as well as pass this learning on to its offspring.

In my earlier years I found crows to be a very challenging target for my varmint rifles.  When a crow presented an opportunity or a shot ones accuracy needed to be dead on for though the crow appears large just take away the feathers and the body is not much larger than a fully feathered robin.  A bullet passing through the crow's feathers was a lesson learned and that crow and its acquaintances would be more careful with their next human encounter.

I remember well seeing crows and attempting to get a shot when at the last moment the crows would fly away.  But in the same situation at another time without the rifle and the crows would scarecly pay attention to my presence.  There is now doubt in my mind that the crows recognized the rifle and understood what a human with a gun could do.

Crows in our area are for the most part wary.  Although I haven't shot one in many a year folks around here still do.  It wasn't until I visited Joe Overstreet in central Florida that I had the opportunity to photograph a crow so up close and personal in a rural setting.  This crow was so close you can even see its eye blink!

Morning Rituals

 Groom

 Shake it Out

Potty

And off we go to start a new Day!

For more Critters of all Kinds

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Camera Critters Blog

American Crow: Don't Roost Below Your Buddies

Once again I had the opportunity to photograph a crow on snow at a reasonable distance. For this shot I set the exposure compensation at +1.7 step.

I recently read an article which explained that most digital cameras will record detail in the brightest area of the image by spot metering on the bright area then compensating +2. In this case I was using evaluative metering which was also taking the crow & background into account. Without compensating the exposure this image would have exposed the snow gray with a black crow devoid of detail

I noticed as this crow landed that it had an unusual white mark on a couple of its feathers but I was unsure of the cause until I reviewed the images later.

A very tight crop of the image reveals that our crow obviously was not the Top Crow on the Roost :)