Change of Luck

So far this winter’s eagle season for me has been a complete bust.  I have been seeing small numbers of eagles, but nothing within range to photograph.  Due to the warm winter most of the water in the lakes and reservoirs is not frozen.  Which gives the eagle’s free roam of the area, and they mostly stay in areas where people cannot go.  But yesterday and today Mother Nature is throwing a curve ball, and dropping temperatures to zero and below, with wind chills in the -20 to -30's.  I am sure that the ice will form on the lakes, and tomorrow I hope that I will get a chance to spend most of the day out.  Maybe these extremely cold temperatures will be the change of luck that I need to get my first eagle photographs of this year.

Since it has been so bad with the eagle count, I decided that I would fill my bird feeders and see what I could get.  I have had a good amount of species visiting including cardinals, blue jays, chickadees, juncos, tufted titmouse, and nuthatches, but I have not seen the woodpeckers that I have seen in the past.

I also have had a hawk that seems to show up every time I fill my feeders.  I guess he likes easy prey.  I feel bad about the situation, but I don’t think I can do much about it.  If you watch him carefully he normally hides in the trees above my feeder and ambushes the other animals.  Last year he attacked a squirrel on the ground below my feeder and chased him up a tree.  It was crazy too watch.  I had never seen a hawk hop branch to branch up a tree and chase a squirrel.  In the end he managed to kill the squirrel just behind my fence.  Since then I have felt bad about filling the feeders but I guess it is only nature taking its course.  If anyone has ideas about stopping the hawk, please feel free to comment.  The only thing I could find was to not fill the feeders for a while and hope the hawk moves on.

I know that I have not been posting much, but I have not had many photographs to post.  So I think I will be trying to post more helpful hints and other things to fill the time in between my photographs.  If anyone has a topic that they would like me to try and cover, please leave a comment and I will try and cover it.  Until next time.

Eagle Season Nearing The End

I awoke this morning to a snow storm, so I decided to go through some photographs from the week.  One of the photographs I liked was a Black Capped Chickadee photo, the only problem was it was snowing and a snow flake made a large blur by the Chickadee.  The other photograph I believe is an American Black Duck.  I liked the duck photograph because it was different because it was pruning itself and it kept closing its eyelid.  

This week was a slow week for bald eagles.  The count was down and they were uncooperative.  However there were a lot more ducks around.  So it appears that migratory duck season has started in this area.  I am looking forward to taking a trip out to the Wallkill River National Wildlife Refuge this duck season.  I have not been home this time of year in four years due to college, and I have never been there during the duck migration periods.  I would also love to photograph some owls this year, and the fields on the Liberty Loop Trail at the Wallkill River National Wildlife Refuge might be the place to see some.  I have never photographed owls before and I would love the opportunity too.  They really are interesting birds and they have always eluded me.  Hopefully I will get out more soon.  Until Next Time.

Freezing Cold

Today was a good day.  All the wildlife were very active, but it was very cold out.  I think the Mourning Dove would agree with me.  The wildlife I saw on my trip were black duck's, black capped chickadee's, a male and female cardinal, sparrow's, mourning doves and many other small birds.  I also spotted 5 bald eagles.  Three of which were full mature.  So overall today was a great day, even though it was really cloudy and really cold.  I Plan on going out again for a while tomorrow, hopefully it will be an even better day.