With the sun brightly shining, temperatures approaching 50, and only a slight breeze, Stacia and I decided to check out the bird activity at Rock Cut State Park. We brought Bella along to hike with us.
Great Blue Heron
Starting out on east side of Pierce Lake we enjoyed a nice show of Great Blue Herons, Hooded and Common Mergansers, Wood Duck, and American Coots. At least one Hooded Merganser was displaying his hood but a Bald Eagle swooped in, stole a fish from a heron, and stole our attention away from the mergansers.
Hooded Mergansers
After feasting on the fish, the eagle flew low over the ducks creating a flurry of panic. However, the eagle calmly headed to a favored perch to digest his meal.
Bald Eagle
We were digiscoping with the Canon 50D DSLR and Swarovski 80mm HD spotting scope with 25-50x wide angle eyepiece. The shot below shows the distance of the tree the Bald Eagle was perched in.
We saw that the eagle was banded but could not quite read the numbers.
After checking the lake we took to the woods where Bella’s retriever instincts kicked in. She flushed a surprised American Woodcock who flew low and disappeared before I could get a photograph.
Bella’s webbed paws in the wet/muddy trail
Songbirds were pretty sparse but we did find a cryptic yet photographable Brown Creeper.
It was a great afternoon to be out hiking and taking pictures!!
Looks like a great day out. I love your shot of the Hooded Merganser procession!