They Just Keep a Comin'!

Wood Duck Drake - Visiting the "Mrs."

 

Have I ever been lax!!!  Well, not really, just shirking my blog responsibilities I guess.  It is so easy to get behind on things - especially when Spring arrives with all its distractions and perks!!!

 

They just keep coming!

 

Waterman Creek Great Blue Heron Rookery

 

First it was the Great Blue Herons returning to the Waterman Rookery across the road from us.  I'd fretted all winter about them; they'd had so many set backs here the past two years.  Two Derechos in a 7 month period destroyed 2/3's of the rookery...but nest building has taken place in April...not as many birds but around 30-36 we believe at this point.

 

 

After the rookery grabbed our attention then the other bird travelers got our attention.  This year was a banner year for Trumpeter Swans!  We observed flocks every day here for nearly 2 weeks - so neat to see that here.

 

We only got the front north pasture burned this spring - and it was late for us.  The humidity levels early spring were incredibly low and the fire hazards just would not allow an early burn.  It was curious because the snow load was very heavy this past winter, but by the time the melt was done - it was too dangerous to get the burns we were wanting.

 

And ironically the ground was too frozen to take in moisture - at least not the majority of it...so we are not breaking the 3 year drought as of yet.  April brought just over an inch of rain, but we aren't quite as bad off as this time last year.  Time will tell.

I haven't gotten out and hiked the prairies for Pasque Flowers this spring yet.  I don't know if that will happen now.  I'm having issues that may keep my "hikes" at home...I'm certainly not getting any younger - how does that sneak up so quickly?!

As of today nearly all our spring visitors and summer residents have returned...I believe the Eastern Kingbirds, Bobolinks and Dickcissels are the main characters yet to return, but I know there are others - they just keep a comin'!

 

Enjoy your Spring and be kind to each other - hope to see you on the Tallgrass!

(All images - ©Bruce A. Morrison)

 

August's Archival Works Friday!

 

It's Archival Works Friday – so soon??!! 

As I mentioned before - I'll post a painting, drawing or serigraph (silkscreen prints) from the "archive" files of years past...and give a little back story on the work - the first Friday of the month. 

I am now including photographs of past years. I hope you'll find it interesting! 

I know I've gotten into this topic before with 'some' of you; it is something I relive occasionally when someone poses the question where I started; where it all began I guess. 

First it was just unintentional small steps...parents who didn't protest about the little things...frogs, toads and turtles "free ranging" in the basement; keeping a Brown Bat in a bird cage on the front porch; science summer school; teaching the neighborhood squirrels to eat out of my hand; wading and fishing in neighborhood streams. (OK...the bat in the cage didn't go over well but we kept it for a couple days anyway.) 

I gained an appreciation for the beauty of this scheme of things. I was fascinated by the light shimmering off the membrane of an amphibian, the colors and design of a turtle's carapace and plastron, the shapes of trees, their leaves, the hillsides along the Des Moines River valley, the rocks and fossils along the favorite stream of my youth - Lizard Creek, or lying on a pasture hillside staring at the sky...watching clouds and the birds that intersected my field of view. 

One day, after saving for weeks, I bought a book..over $12 - a lot of money back then for a kid!  I was eleven or twelve; the book was full of color illustrations by Louis Aggassiz Fuertes. They were awesome, beautiful...the slip cover of this 1937 edition book, for the lack of a better word, transported me. On the front cover were two of my most favorite birds, a Cooper's and a Red-tailed Hawk - perched on treetop branches above forested hillsides. The landscape and the birds were mesmerizing for a young impressionable me. I wanted to paint birds. 

Birds in the yard would never seem to hold still long enough for me to draw; I got the idea I needed to photograph them, and then I could draw them from their photo; brilliant idea I thought. After all, Audubon drew and painted from his birds after shooting them – this would be less messy! 

I didn't have a camera, but my mother loaned me her old box camera. Ya, the old Ansco Shur-Shot Jr. at the top of this post, was to be my first camera. I actually took quite a few pictures with this Ansco...all B&W...it was a 120 film camera (2 1/4X2 3/4" or 6X7cm). You can kind of guess how useful it was as a bird camera though - not very. 

One incident convinced me to get a "suitable" camera. I was walking the upper banks along Lizard Creek's south branch west of town (Ft Dodge, IA) one summer afternoon. It was a typical hot and humid day and the afternoon wasn't the best condition to find birds. By just dumb luck I came upon a Great Horned Owl sitting in a tree jutting out of the high bank below me. The bird was maybe 3 - 4 feet out from the bank on a branch about 8 - 10 feet above the water flowing beneath it. The bird was awake, looking across the creek into the woodland there. I dropped as fast as I could into the grass above the high bank and crawled very slowly on my stomach to the bank's edge and peered over - it hadn't seen or heard me, the noise of the creek had masked my presence. My heart was pounding so loud I was sure the bird would hear it! 

The owl was sitting in deep shade. I pushed the box camera ahead of me and tried peering into the viewfinder without raising my head too much and giving myself away. I was no more than 6-8 feet away from the bird, yet I could not find the owl in my viewfinder; the old box camera's viewfinder just was not bright enough. I looked up again and tried to reference where the bird was, then looked back into the viewfinder - still no bird, I looked up again and the owl was no where...it was gone. 

My first SLR 35mm camera in 1963

 

Whether the bird spotted or heard me I really don't know, what I do remember is the rush from the experience and the needling anguish of blowing it! That was not going to happen again! I spent the next year saving money from about any odd job I could find, (mainly my paper route) and bought myself an East German 'Practica IV' SLR and a 400mm lens. As best I can recollect, this was in 1963. 

My first bird photo with my Practica SLR in 1964 (White-breasted Nuthatch) on Kodachrome slide film with a Kowa 400mm lens and a bellows attachment for a closer focus range.

I became hooked on nature photography that way...birds eventually led to all flora and fauna and to the landscape. Painting nature eventually led the same direction. I don't know why I didn't become an ornithologist, biologist or botanist? There was always an urge to paint, draw or photograph and that's all I can say. 

We all gotta start somewhere! 

Hope to see you on the Tallgrass!