Red-tailed Hawk Nesting Season Has Begun!
The female Red-tailed Hawk blended into the lichen covered cliff face so well that even with my sharp eyesight I didn't see her until the male landed next to her.
The female Red-tailed Hawk blended into the lichen covered cliff face so well that even with my sharp eyesight I didn't see her until the male landed next to her.
This isn't the kind of Short-eared Owl image you'll see in a bird guide but when you are looking for these owls in the field sometimes a view like this is all you will get.
The adult female Northern Harrier was in flight in wonderful, warm morning light and I couldn't resist raising my lens and taking photos of her as she flew past.
While looking through my photos from two years ago today I came across images of this Ring-billed Gull coming in for a landing and thought the gull looked perfect against the blue of the water.
No matter how these Golden Eagle photos came to be I am happy to have photographed this magnificent bird on the wing.
The Great Blue Herons were hunkered down in the rushes with the warmth of the sunlight on them but they still looked cold.
These Great Blue Heron images also help me to "see" what this species would have looked like as they lived their lives in primordial swamps, estuaries and marshes hundreds of thousands of years ago.
I had so much fun photographing Reddish Egrets when I lived in Florida and could see them nearly every time I went to Fort De Soto County Park's north beach.
I keep wondering if I will see this big, gorgeous, rufous Red-tailed Hawk female in my viewfinder again this year.
I've grown to love and appreciate the mountain views I have here in Utah. When I can take photographs that combine my passion for birds with mountains in them I am one very happy woman.
There were plenty of Great Blue Herons to photograph yesterday morning at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge and I was more than happy to take photos of them.
I can't say that I prefer one of these Ring-billed Gull images over the other, the low light image is as appealing to me as the one I took in afternoon light. I enjoy them both.
I wanted to take the time to wish my brother a Happy Birthday here on my blog and it seemed fitting to use this photo of a Barn Owl hunting in daylight that I took seven years ago today.
So if you don't enjoy the craziness that can happen at Farmington Bay WMA when the Bald Eagles arrive for the winter just pick an area and go for a relaxed drive to another location.
Two frames later the immature Northern Harrier tilted its head, looked directly towards my lens, and seemed to eyeball me and my gear.
I might have taken some wonderful photos of birds in nice light yesterday if I had only listened to my instincts and gone out to look for birds.
I'm grateful when I can photograph a drake Common Goldeneye in flight during the "Golden Hour" or any other bird I see through my viewfinder.
Sometimes I wonder how birds get their names, especially the birds with "Common" in their names such as Common Mergansers.
I need to get to Bear River MBR soon because I have visions of Tundra Swans drifting through my mind and I'd love to see them in person on the marshes of the refuge again.
I actually like photographing birds in a snow storm because the low light situations test my skills, the limits of my gear and the resulting photos often have a moody feeling to them.
There was a stiff breeze blowing and when the light morph Rough-legged Hawk lifted off from the juniper it seemed to me as if he did it in slow motion.
It has been a long time since I had a dark morph Ferruginous Hawk in my view finder so when I spotted it hovering over a field I knew I had to stop and get photos of it.
When I was at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge a few days ago I saw lots of ducks in the marshes and on the water and I realized that I am looking forward to photographing winter ducks again.
With scores of pipits flying in, flying out and moving around on the rocks it was a challenge to decide which bird to have in my viewfinder.
These nine Snowy Egret photos are just a fraction of the images I took of a small flock of these snowy, white birds with golden slippers yesterday morning on the marshes of Farmington Bay WMA.
I took this White-faced Ibis on the wing over the marsh at Farmington Bay WMA photo last week and at first I thought the bird was too small in the frame but the more I look at it the more I like it.
Not only was this Ring-billed Gull in molt it was molting in a remarkably symmetrical pattern which I found interesting. Because the gull was in flight the symmetry was very visible.
I had fun testing my skills by photographing several immature Forster's Terns that were hunting for and catching prey at Farmington Bay WMA two days ago.
There are times when one bird can make my day and yesterday that bird was an immature Red-tailed Hawk that I spotted just before heading home after a trip into the mountains that included fog and other challenges.
The lighting I had wasn't the best but for some reason I really like this photo of the American White Pelican on the wing over the refuge because of the contrasts between the whites and blues in the frame.