Middle Creek is slowly thawing out and there's a few thousand Snow Geese to show for it. Loads of Tundra Swans and an assortment of ducks and Canada Geese. Providing the severe weather for early next week doesn't freeze things up again the Snow Geese numbers should be increasing daily. Here's a few shots from this morning.
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| Tundra Swans |
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| Frozen |
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| Tundra Swans |
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| Bald Eagle at Willow Point |
... so far. The wind is picking up although the snow has tapered off considerably. We got barely 3 inches for which I'm very grateful, I'm getting too old to keep dealing this white shit. Stupid Groundhog and his 6 more weeks of winter. It is pretty on the trees though, I just hope it doesn't take down our power lines when the wind picks up later this morning.
As today was hovering just over the freezing level I took myself off to Middle Creek to see if I could see and hopefully photograph the 7 Sandhill Cranes and the Rough-legged Hawk that have been around for while. While there I met a friend from the Hawkwatch and together we went to end of the Tour Road where the Rough-legged had been seen recently. Damn it was cold due to the strong wind in our faces, it may have been over the freezing level but the wind chill definetly wasn't. Wasn't long before we saw it flying towards us and I grabbed my camera from the front seat but it had turned away. Bugger! After we went our separate ways I went up to the Visitor Center to check out the feeders and take a much needed leak. Lots of Sparrows, Juncos Cardinals and an aggressive Mockingbird but nothing worthy of a shot. I did take a scenic shot looking towards the lake though.
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| Frozen Middle Creek |
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| Willow |
On the way to run a couple of errands this morning I stopped on my drive along the lane and I just happened to have my camera with me. The light was excellent and I was rewarded with not only the Horned Larks but Snow Bunting and Lapland Longspur.
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| Horned Lark |
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| Horned Lark |
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| Horned Lark |
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| Horned Lark |
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| Snow Bunting |
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| Snow Bunting |
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| Snow Bunting |
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| Lapland Longspur |
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| Snow Bunting |
It's only been snowing for a few hours and the snow is very fine, about another 12 hours to go according to the forecast. It's already over 6 inches deep and when the wind picks up it's going to create some awesome drifts. Time to stick another couple of logs on the fire.
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| Fields during Winter Storm Fern |
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| Fields during Winter Storm Fern |
The other day; Sunday I think it was, I didn't fancy going outside except to feed the birds and to bring in extra firewood. I decided instead to photograph my Orchid that bloomed again after following the technique I learned from watching something on YouTube. This is a 50 frame focus stack, I also did a 50 frame focus stack combined with a 32 frame pixel shift for each regular frame. This of course equals 50 x 32 frames which for the mathematically challenged (basically any of the dumbasses born in the last 25 years) equals 1600 shots. I've processed these 1600 shots using Nikon NX Studio but haven't looked at it yet.
