Whitewater Draw Weekend

With Winter firmly ahold of us (temps in the 60s!), it was time to plan a birding trip to Whitewater draw. I've posted about our many trips there a couple times a year for nearly a decade since we discovered it. In recent years, Arizona Game and Fish have installed a webcam to keep an eye (and ear!) on the action there. This year showed a LOT more water than in the last few years. I'm not sure it is from more rainfall or if the irrigation system is working again after failing a few years back. It sort of put a crimp on the cranes the last few years, so was looking forward to seeing the place again.

I ended up going out both Saturday AND Sunday! There were lots of cranes, but interestingly, they were all avoiding the water! Years past they all gathered in the shallow water to avoid predators (coyotes) through the night, but now they gathered on the banks. But this behavior brought them closer to the walking path, so was able to get some good close-ups.

The main activity besides resting (feeding is generally done in fields away from the wetlands), as well as male posing, presumably looking for females, or exerting dominance. The pair of males shown here were trying to out-do each other. I was in the perfect spot for the photo at left where they were standing tall with wings outstretched - mirroring each other. The left image is a full-resolution blowup to show the steely gaze of the crane looking my way.


It so happened that I was set up next to 2 other photographers - all of us shooting with the same setup - Canon cameras with the 500mm and 1.4X extender! I was the only local one. Anyway, the two cranes continued their antics shown here. At right, one went low the other high, and finally at right it appears the confrontation was over. I wasn't sure which one won the contest, but I'm sure that THEY did!

The group of cranes adjacent to the walking path was closest to us, but was small in numbers compared to the main group which seemed to the west side of the wetlands, about a quarter mile or so away. They were raising quite a racket out there, and in binoculars, seemed again to be avoiding the water. Some snow geese were, as usual, scattered among the sand hill cranes.

I love their rattling calls. If you tune in to the webcam above, you can hear them. On occasion when something causes them to take to the air, the show starts when you hear the wing beats of thousands of cranes taking to the air, then the ruckus starts with the calls also filling the air. I can sit and watch/listen for hours, which I generally do - occasionally taking a photo or two!

At left, the view is towards the west - the large groups of cranes can be seen at bottom, with many taken to the air, seen in silhouette against the Mule Mountains. The lowlands contain fields where the cranes often congregate.  At right is a view to the northwest, again seen against the mountains illuminated by a very low sun.

As has happened a few times in the past, as sunset neared, there appeared a "tornado" of blackbirds, rushing in huge groups to congregate in the reeds and rushes around open water. Upon closer examination, they were, in fact, yellow-headed blackbirds. At left they are seen as they gather, with cranes in the background. They are evidently close cousins of the more common redwing blackbirds, but Whitewater is the only place I've seen the yellow-headed version.

There were many other species of birds feeding. Here at right are seen a group of American coots taking one last feeding trip across the wetlands before it got dark. Only seen in silhouette here, they sport nearly white beaks and dark red eyes, making them more striking in full sunlight...


I had spotted a great blue heron as we entered from the parking lot, and right on cue at sunset, it flew right in front of me to roost in a clump of vegetation not 50 yards away. In the deepening twilight, the exposure was long enough that the wing flaps were blurred, but in scanning to follow it, at least the pupil of the eye is still sharp!

The usual routine was for the cranes to return to the protection of the water as nightfall came. Many took to the air and flew nearby, and it is always a challenge to capture them against the twilight sky. At right is about my best effort as they were gliding without flapping their wings. Even as it got dark they were sharply captured.


I'll have to say, that Saturday's twilight was likely the most spectacular I've ever seen! Of course, there are a lot of those in AZ, but this one was very long-lasting, actually 45 minutes of color from looking at the time stamp on my images. I've got 2 to show here, at left a single image showing some of the birders here distracted by the sunset colors. And at left is a 3-image "HDR" (High Dynamic Range) photo that combines different exposures to extend the visibility of highlights and shadows...

It was clear enough on Sunday to take a few
star photos.  The big news in astronomy now is that in the constellation of Orion, the upper left star, Betelgeuse has been growing fainter than it has ever been seen!  Instead of the brightest star in the prominent constellation, it is now third-brightest, effectively tied with Bellatrix, the upper right star.  At left I took a photo purposely out of focus to show the colors of the striking constellation.  The orange color of Betelgeuse reveals it to be a red giant star - very cool (thus orange-colored) compared to the bluish other stars of the constellation.  At right is another not quite as far out of focus to show much fainter star colors.  While most are still blue, many fainter ones have reddish colors as well.

I've only started to harvest images from these 2 trips, so look for more soon, as well as likely more trips while the cranes are here!

Return Trip

Jeez, my return to AZ was nearly 2 weeks ago - probably overdue to post about it! It started with what is getting to be a tradition - meeting my sister Linda and her husband Lauren to hunt for eagles along the Mississippi! Clinton, IA (where I was born) has a bald eagle festival the first weekend of January. On most years, the Mississippi is iced over and eagles gather below lock and dam #13 where the open water allows fishing. When that occurs, you can see hundreds of bald eagles in the trees along the river, occasionally taking flight and hunting fish. Both last year and this, there was no ice (temps in the 60s, which we enjoyed on Christmas will do that!), so we had to go hunting for what used to be a rare sighting of eagles. Back 50 years ago growing up in the area, we never saw eagles, but they are quite common now.

But we did have a couple brisk nights with temps in the low 20s, and some strong winds, and as we went exploring along the eastern shore of "Lake Clinton" above the dam, we saw some cool sightings of the shore, plants and rocks with a translucent coating of ice, melting in the late-afternoon sun. These were taken at "Thompson Slough" where there was a nice-looking campground that my sister's family had stayed a number of times.

It was quite striking, both the ice coating around the water line, as well as the water itself - there was enough wave action that random "puzzle pieces" in the water moved up and down relative to each other with an edge of slushy ice along the border, as shown at left. With the moderate temperatures, the ice likely didn't hang around long...



So the search for eagles continued.  Last year we had success up near Sabula - another 10 miles upstream on the Iowa side. One of my favorite aunts lived in the area until a few years ago, and there was little excuse to visit the area any more! Anyway, there is a little city park on the south side of "Sabula Lake", and as we headed there, sure enough, there were a couple eagles standing atop some thin ice on the still water... As shown at left, these were the only eagles we spotted on New Year's Day. With the river open, it was NOT fishing as normal with them hanging out in the trees along the river. These photos were taken in the very-late afternoon (about 30 minutes before sunset) with a big, 500mm telephoto lens. We were not very close to this pair (perhaps 100 yards or more), but the following close-ups are shown at full-resolution. The closer of the eagles took off just as I was setting up on it, so got a quick sequence of it jumping into the air...


After the first hop upwards above, the first wing flap appears to have bounced off the ice, as shown at left. By the next stroke at right he was truly airborne and on his way. I should have cranked up the gain (ISO) on the camera in the growing gloom, but the longish exposures had subsequent images blur unacceptably...

We scurried back down to Fulton (across the Mississippi from Clinton), and met some family for dinner at Manny's - a pizza and sandwich place of some renown. All the siblings save baby sister Sheri, now in Alabama, were there, as was my Uncle John and his family, including his son who was visiting from the Boston area - a real family reunion!

Already to the Mississippi, I headed towards AZ from there. I made it to Des Moines that night, then drove all day down across Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas into New Mexico staying at Tucumcari the second night. Didn't take any photos for much of the trip, but a striking sight from even 100 miles away was the San Francisco Peaks welcoming me back to AZ - the remnant of an ancient volcano and at 14,000+ feet the highest point in the state. Here I was still 30 miles east of Flagstaff (and the mountain), but even from that distance it was an impressive view! So the trip was uneventful, short at 12 days away, but still very glad I did it!

Mr October!

When I was back at "Ketelsen East" during the Fall, while out enjoying breakfast with Melinda's buddy Sallie, I happened to notice a copy of the St Charles Daily Herald open for restaurant patrons to enjoy. I noticed there was a "calendar contest" for local residents, with a deadline towards the end of October. Never having even seeing a copy of the paper or previous calendars, I wasn't sure what sort of images they were looking for, but the blurb said they wanted "photos illustrating life in the Northwest and West suburbs".


Well, I had a couple favorite macro subjects and submitted them the night of the deadline. They said winners would be contacted by December 6th. Not expecting much from the special-interest macro images, I waited...


But miracles of miracles, I got an email from "Kat" from the paper stating I'd won! No details, but my "prize" was a copy of the calendar and while their subscribers got theirs in the Sunday, 17 December edition, they wanted to send me a copy. Since I was in Tucson, they mailed it here. I suspect it passed me as I was driving back to the Midwest this recent trip. But it was waiting for me upon my return yesterday! I'm Mr October, and my alternate submission was in the last page of "honorable mentions"!




The "dewdrop on Dandelion" is likely my favorite image of all time, so was hoping that was the one chosen, and indeed it was, though I had an early indication the alternate - "Aphid on Dandelion" was the one they were using. Interesting that both are of dandelions, yet, I've not seen any around the house(the camp might be spraying, or perhaps because of the Fox flooding the last couple years) the last few years... The "dewdrops" were taken in November of 2016, and the aphid in May of 2015... No, I do NOT know how you can get a copy of the calendar, since they were distributed free to subscribers. But for your viewing convenience, I include copies of the winning images here. 


So I had a nice holiday surprise, but didn't get rich from it! Although they did spell my name right! Got to be thankful for that!