As I was coming back from Barr Lake, I was fortunate to capture this beautiful Western Meadowlark right at sunset:
I definitely have to get out more! I have been spending so much time working on the website lately, that I haven’t had a chance to get out and take pictures, with the exception of one trip last week with a fellow photographer and birder Tom, who was kind enough to show me where the Snowy Owl happens to be near Colorado Springs. I will post some pics of the Snowy Owl tomorrow.
Captured this guy a couple of days ago on the way to Barr Lake State Park:
I was told that there is a big number of bald eagles near Barr Lake this year. I’m planning to drive there this weekend and take a long hike, with the Nikon 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 VR lens.
I had a hard time picking my favorites and I’m sure I didn’t do a good job, but anyway – here are the non-raptor bird pics that I liked from 2009:
I’m starting to upload the “Best of 2009″ images for your pleasure :) I apologize that it took me so long, I just didn’t have much time to go back and look through all the pictures. Hopefully you will like these – I’m providing them at high resolutions, so that you can use them as your desktop wallpapers.
More to come tomorrow!
Caught this Greater Sage-Grouse in Yellowstone:
Captured with Nikon D300 and Nikon 200-400mm f/4.0 lens.
Brown pelican diving into the water from the same summer archive:
Psst…Lola is preparing some sort of a “secret” recipe that she will be posting tomorrow, so stay tuned!
Dug this shot of a Great Blue Heron out of this summer’s archives:
This image of the Harris’s Hawk is so far my favorite raptor picture of the year. It is very challenging to take pictures of birds in flight and this one actually came out pretty well – the eyes are sharp and fully directed at me, which I really like in the photograph. There is one more image that is better than this one in terms of position of wings, but one of the wings got cut off from the frame (I was shooting hand-held) and it ruined the picture :(
The above image was captured with a Nikon D300 and Nikon 300mm f/4.0 AF-S lens.
While driving with my kids to a local park for birding, I saw this hawk flying around very low. I was slowly making a turn and continued watching the bird to see what happens next. All of a sudden, the hawk dove into the ground and I knew he was going to have a catch. Then he flew up and I clearly saw some sort of a rodent in his claws. I quickly grabbed my camera and drove towards a pole where he sat to first kill the rodent, then to consume it.
Click “read more” only if you are OK with seeing some gruesome details of a hawk consuming a mouse. Although there is no blood in the animation, some people might feel sick watching this, so I’m just warning you :)
Hawk with a mouse
