Arctic Birds - Part 1

No matter where I am in the world, birds are always a focus for my photography. Although the variety of birds in the Arctic was less than in many places I have been, the sheer number of individuals was staggering. Most Arctic birds have a short time when they can come on shore to nest so they make the most of it.

 This post shows some of the more common birds we saw, such as the Arctic Tern, above. These birds are so delicate looking but they are ferocious in defense of their nests.

 Barnacle Geese are similar in size and coloration to Canada Gees.

This wall of Kittiwakes and Guillemots is indicative of what we saw in a number of locations. In the closer shot, below, you can get a sense for just how dense the population was. There were thousands of birds on each wall we visited.

 The Guillemots were also visible hanging out on ice floes far out from shore.

 We saw several different types of guillemots including this Black, left. It was fascinating to watch this guy use his red feet as rudders.

 One type of birds we saw constantly was the Fulmar. These guys are really, really cool, in my opinion. They are tube-nosed, which means they have a tube on top of their beaks which allows them to smell food from a long way off. They have a salt gland which excretes excess salt since they are constantly ingesting it as they skim along the top of the ocean. So their nose is always running with salt snot. And their greatest defense against predators is to throw up on them. Their puke is so toxic it will mat the plumage of predators, causing them to be unable to fly and so to die. Wow!

 Speaking of predators, the most common one of other birds on Svalbard is the Glaucous Gull. These guys are huge and ferocious. They steal eggs and attack smaller birds and chicks.

 In the photo above, the female Glaucous Gull is sitting the nest while the male watches over her. It looked to me like she was riding side-car.

The only song bird of the Arctic is the Snow Bunting. It was such a treat to see and hear them since they occasionally show up in Wyoming in mid-winter. Their version of going south in the colder months!

The East Gate is Open!

It really seems that over the last few years the number of photographers traveling Yellowstone Park has increased dramatically. Most are respectful of both wildlife and their fellow visitors but there are some who seem to think the Park is their private shooting gallery and everybody else should stay away.

I will admit it sometimes make me more determined to try and capture those amazing locations and special moments in areas outside the park boundaries.

Be that as it may, it is tough to ignore opening weekend of the East Gate - the entrance nearest Cody - in this incredible place. I was unable to attend either of the first two days; the ones when all my friends and fellow photographers captured unbelievable shots of grizzlies, fresh out of their dens, fighting over carcasses left from winter hardships. But I did have a chance to go in on Sunday with wonderful friends in the group "Shoot like a Woman"

 While we saw moose, bighorn sheep, elk and lots of mule deer along the Northfork, our sightings inside the park were of the smaller variety of creatures. I am always happy when I can photograph birds  and there was no shortage of those. The sandhill cranes in the first and last photos were along Yellowstone Lake. The pintail, below, was in a small lake in Hayden Valley. The coyote was near Gibbon Meadows and he was determined to track down a meal under the snow even though he was constantly plunging through the soft spring cover.

One of my favorite moments of the day was watching the standoff between a pair of Canada Geese and some cranes. The geese finally got frustrated and flew at the bigger birds who seemed unperturbed by the noisy twosome.

Goosed!

The goal of our recent trip to Nebraska was to view migrating sandhill cranes. We were thrilled to see and hear thousands of the large birds but we were also amazed by the sighting of what was  almost certainly more than a million geese. 

We started seeing large numbers of geese overhead almost as soon as the interstate began following the Platte River in Nebraska. The streams looked like undulating lines of skywriting overhead that went on for mile after mile after mile. At first we assumed the birds were Canada Geese but a closer look showed that they were primarily Snow Geese. Over the course of the next five days we saw some Canadas and a few White Fronts but the overwhelming majority of birds were the white and black Snow Geese.

 The birds tended to travel or feed in the corn fields with the sandhill cranes during the day and then bunk in to small lakes or on the sand bars in the Platte River during the nighttime hours.

 There were times when the sky was totally black with snow geese. The photo above looks like an insect hatch. It is pretty amazing to think that each one of those specks is a 5-6 pound bird!

The two color variations of snow geese can be seen in this last photo.