Common Waterfowl

Blue Winged Teal - Hen and Drake

Ruddy Duck

American Coot

Pie-Billed Grebe

Green Winged Teal

Mallard

Northern Shoveler

Sauk City Eagle Days

 Five year high numbers of Bald Eagles are in Sauk City and Prairie Du Sac this year.  As many as 120 have been reported in the area, so we decided to go there instead of the marsh.  This was my third pilgrimage to see the eagles in consecutive years.  The first two were disappointing not seeing more than 3 or 4 Eagles each year.  Not this year!  Eagles were everywhere and they were active. Got some sequences I am pretty happy with despite some lighting challenges and distance to cover.

Catching a fish - been trying to get this sequence for years.

This one wanted to sit in a tree right off the road and pose.

Coming in for a Landing

Birds in Flight

After an extreme act of stupidity of leaving my Cannon 7d on the hood of my car and driving off down the highway and $500 later, my camera is back and intact.  That, along with that my 100mm-400mm lens that spontaneously stopped working, I am back to full strength.  I haven't been out this week to the Marsh, but I wanted to post some of my favorite types of pictures - birds in flight.  I shot thousands of pictures, battling light angles and uncooperative subjects to get a very few good shots.

Immature Red-tail Hawk

White Pelicans

Kestrel Taking Flight

Herring Gull

Turkey Vulture - A face only a mother could love

Red-tail hawk

Immature Red-tail hawk taking flight

Forsters Tern

Sunny, exciting and frustrating

You know it's going to be a great day in the Horicon Marsh when the sun is shining without a cloud in the sky and first bird you see is a bald eagle.  What a great day for spotting raptors and a couple of firsts for me as well.  In an hour and half I saw about 8 Kestrels, a dozen Rough-legged Hawks, about 10 Red-tailed hawks, a Northern Harrier, my first Horicon Marsh Cooper's hawk and the afore mention Bald Eagle.  That's the good news, the bad news I didn't get a shot at the eagle and though the Northern Harrier was perched in a tree right off Point Road, I was unable to get my camera up fast enough to get the shot .

Cooper's Hawk taking Flight

Dark Morph Rough-Legged Hawk

No Snowy Owl - yet!

Two days of scouring the Marsh has not yet yielded any snowy owl sightings. I've also learned that the Short-Eared Owl resides in the marsh and it has moved to number two on the target list.  The rangers in the NWR side where helpful in providing me some more spots to look, but as of yet have not turned anything up.  I always love the stories like I heard yesterday mourning "Oh, if you are looking for Snowy Owls you should have been here two years ago, when I saw one every day, both to and from work, right on Hwy 49." Very helpful!  I continue to spot large numbers of rough-legged hawks (10-12) and a few Kestrels and Red-tailed hawks.  I even saw a Great Blue Heron still hanging around on old dike road by the open water.


For now I will continue to post pictures from this past year until I get something worthy of a 2011 posting.

Least Bittern on 3 mile loop.

Yellow Headed Black Bird on Old Marsh Road

Red-Headed Duck

White Pelican

I enjoy watching the white pelicans in the Marsh.  At certain times of the year they are there in great numbers on either side of Hwy 49.  One day I noticed something odd about one of them.  Looks like it got a fishing lure stuck in it's bill.  It didn't seem to slow it down, but it looked uncomfortable to me.

Snapping Turtle

I stumbled across this large snapping turtle  last sping out of the water.  They are pretty imposing when you get up close.