Month: July 2015

Missed Opportunities

As I said previously, I had so many good shots at Big Beef Creek that I am having a hard time deciding which images to post. So, instead of trying to pick out my best shots, I decided to first post shots I liked but that frustrated me because they were not as good as they should have been. Curiously, all four are shots of immature Bald Eagles. For some reason, my camera had trouble accurately focusing and correctly exposing shots of immature bald eagles though it didn’t have that problem with mature Bald Eagles, Great Blue Heron, or even Crows.

Ironically, the immature eagles flew closer than any of the other birds. As a result, some good shots cut part of the bird off, like this shot.

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Although the feet (and head) are sharply focused, the wings aren’t, and, to make matters worse, the wings were underexposed because I was shooting against the sky. Technically, this

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is probably the best of these four shots, but naturally the pose is the least interesting. Static shots are always the easiest to get.

This was my favorite action shot of the day of an immature Bald Eagle,

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but being backlit again made it impossible to capture the kind of detail that translates into a really good shot.

The detail in this shot seems quite good,

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but, of course, the pose isn’t nearly as dynamic as the previous shot.

I’ll have to admit, though, that I felt blessed to have had the opportunity to miss shots like these. As much as I enjoy being buzzed by the swallows at Theler, it’s an entirely different feeling having eagles fly over your head.

Too Much of a Good Thing

I had anticipated a return to Big Beef Creek for almost a year since I loved the Bald Eagle and Great Blue Heron shots I got there last year. In fact, one of the reasons I hurried back from my trip to Bear River, Malheur and Tule was so that I could get to Big Beef Creek before Gavin and Lael stayed with us while Dawn and Rich went on a trip to Mexico.

Needless to say, like this Great Blue Heron

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I was at Big Beef Creek long before the high tide receded and the sculpins were stranded.

It wasn’t long, though, before even more Great Blue Herons arrived,

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perched in the tallest firs before deciding where to stake out their fishing claim.
With Great Blue Herons lining the point and more arriving all the time

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it looked like it was going to be a great day for photographs.

That seemed to be confirmed when this Bald Eagle flew over

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apparently checking to see if any of the herons had made a catch that it could poach.

It turned out to be two days of great shooting. In fact, the number of good shots I got were overwhelming, especially since I hadn’t yet had time to process all the shots I’d taken on my week-long outing.

I still haven’t had time to process them all; it’s taking a lot longer than usual to decide which shots to work on and which to delete. I’m even having trouble deciding how to present them — which is why I decided to start this way, though these shots will probably be deleted in the next day or two.

One, or Two, Thing(s) More

After the visitor pointed out the Great Horned Owl chicks to me, I started examining the area to see what else I could find on the wall. Turned out to be a lot more than I would have imagined. I quickly spotted several Cliff Swallows and followed them as they flew up to their nests.

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It seemed that this colony was still adding nests,

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and you didn’t have to scour the wall too hard to find other swallow nests.

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Nor did you have to look very hard to see where birds had relieved themselves, and if you looked long enough you could see chicks on some of these.

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I’m not enough of an expert to positively identify these, but there were Red-Tailed Hawks flying overhead several times.

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I couldn’t have asked for a better ending to my week-long excursion, so I decided to start home rather than spending another night camping out.

Baby Great Horned Owls

I saw a lot of the same birds at Tule that I saw at both Bear River and Malheur, so I don’t feel compelled to show those birds again. But there was an unexpected special moment at Petroglyph Point. Despite past experience, I am a sucker for petroglyphs so I couldn’t resist the short drive after taking the Tule Lake road tour. Unfortunately, once again I found that the petroglyphs had been cordoned off to prevent vandalism so there was a limited number of petroglyphs to see and many of them had been defaced.

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What really made the stop special wasn’t the petroglyphs, but, rather, the unexpected birds I saw there. There was another group looking at the petroglyphs when I arrived and one of them spotted this baby Great Horned Owl staring at her.

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They were so well disguised that at first she thought she was looking at a petroglyph. In fact, they were so well disguised that neither of us saw the second baby located in the bottom right corner of the shot.

This second, long shot more clearly shows the second owl, though I had to do some serious photoshopping to make both the own in the direct sunlight and the one in the shadows visible.

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Thank goodness for RAW format.

I was surprised how bold the one young owl was as it moved around and followed us with its eyes as we walked around to get a different angle on it.

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I kept looking around for parents but couldn’t spot them. I’ve never been this close to a Great Horned Owl before, and I was a little worried about how protective the parents might get.