Conowingo - December 2016

Yesterday we spent the morning at Conowingo Fisherman’s Park. It was a sunny morning – Christmas – and the traffic was light. When we got there we immediately noticed that there were more gulls than we’d seen before and the water was churning from the dam.

It takes us about an hour to get to Conowingo from our house so we had not put on all our winter gear beforehand. I added ski bibs, a fleece jacket, a silky balaclava, and a hooded scarf before I put on my coat. Foot warmers were added to the bottom of my feet before I put on my hiking boots and I stuck hand warmers in my gloves. At the last minute, I decided to add the bands the legs of the ski bibs to shorten them a little since the pavement was slushy and wet. The temperature was in the 30s…a good but not severe test of the ‘cold weather’ garb. I stayed comfortably warm!  The silky balaclava is newest addition and I like it because it easily pulls up over my mouth…are higher over my nose; That would be great for colder or windier days. You can also see that we were not the only ones enjoying the birds at Conowingo on Christmas morning!

The Bald Eagles are the reason we go to Conwingo. My husband got the best pictures of the day of an eagle that had just caught a fish.

He also took a picture of one up in a tulip poplar tree that we noticed as we talked back to our car getting ready to leave.

I took some pictures that are past the optical zoom range of my camera…into the digital zoom.  There were almost always eagles on the abutment come out from the dam and I couldn’t resist trying to capture their interactions.  The one on the left is keeping a firm hold on his catch.

Is this one screaming at the gulls to go away?

And sometimes there is just a big tussle. There are at least three birds involved in this picture.

This eagle is surrounded by black vultures – although they all seem to be not making eye contact with each other.

There were groups of black vultures on the railing at the top of the dam…and there always seemed to be one or two that were spreading their wings.

I saw one cormorant in the water…and one flying low over the water.

The gulls were ring-billed gulls. They would dive down to catch a fish then (sometimes) bob downstream on the surface.

Now for some ‘can you find’ pictures. There is a great blue heron in each of the three pictures below (not flying).

Do you see the pigeons in the picture below?

And finally – do you see the two Bald Eagles?

Conowingo was a good outing for our Christmas morning!

Elephant Butte Lake State Park

On the Friday morning of our trip to New Mexico, our tour was on a houseboat at Elephant Butte State Park. We were glad that the high winds from the day before had died down – although once we were out on the lake the breeze made for a cold time photographing birds! The movement of the boat also presented a challenge too. We saw Western Grebes near the dock and out on the lake; the picture below is near the dock.

The picture below is of a Clark’s Grebe (there is white in front of the eye and the bill is brighter yellow). Note that the water is a lot rougher in this picture….it was out on the lake.

There were American coots near the dock as well and some were close enough to photograph while the morning sun was still coloring the water.

Brewer’s Blackbirds frequented the dock area too. This male posed on gate – making it easy to photography him calling and staring at me!

American White Pelicans were out and about on the lake. They were very far away so I was using the zoom on my camera to photography them.

After I got back to hotel and looked at my pictures on a larger screen, I noticed one of the ‘pelican pictures’ had cormorants in it!

There were cormorants on one of the mounds of tires used as breakwaters around the docks. Note the Clark’s Grebe in the picture too.

After returning to the dock and having lunch, we headed out to the park below the dam. Evidently the area is usually teaming the birds but all we saw the day we were there was a male Pyrrhuloxia – and I was frustrated that this was the best picture I could get. He definitely was not posing for us.

It was a good day trip – and very different from our experience at Bosque del Apache.

OSIRIS-REx Pre-Launch Activities

Our first day in Florida was spent with check-in as a launch guest, a mission briefing, and touring the Kennedy Space Center. The check-in was at the ATX (Astronaut Training Experience) Center.

It was a busy place with people picking up the packets with a badge/lanyard, information sheets, a paper model, stickers, patches, and pens. We also picked up the tickets for the mission briefing.

We had previously signed up for the 12:30 briefing that would be held in the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Center so we headed there as soon as we had our packets. We made arrangements for a bus tour in the afternoon and then had a quick lunch.

After the briefing we boarded the bus for a tour. We were able to see the OSIRIS-REx capsule atop its Atlas rocket (one booster) on the pad. We didn’t get as close as we did for the Maven capsule back in 2013.

The launch pad where the SpaceX rocket exploded recently was also visible.

We also saw some wildlife while on the tour: some cormorants and an alligator.

The next day we would come back for the launch --- the topic for tomorrow's blog.

Conowingo – June 2016

I stopped by Conowingo Dam on my way to Philadelphia. It was not a great day for birds. The water was low and the large number of birds we saw last time (probably many newly fledged Bald Eagles and Great Blue Herons) were foraging elsewhere. The picture of the point of rocks that always seems to attract at least one heron illustrates the low water (the white marks are how high the water is normally).

We saw a few eagles fishing. After I looked at one of my pictures on a larger screen, I realized there were more than I thought. Click on the image below to get a larger view of:

• 3 eagles on the abutments (a juvenile and adult on the closer one, an adult on the further one),
• 3 black vultures near the center of the picture, and
• 3 or 4 cormorants on the rocks in the lower right!

We took a few pictures and continued our road trip.

Conowingo – May 2016

We made the trek to Conowingo Dam to see Bald Eagles last weekend. There was some action right away – but at about the limit of my Canon Powershot SX710 HS point-and-shot. The images are not as crisp as a photographer with a more expensive camera and big lens...but still good enough to capture behavior. It was entertaining to watch the eagles – many of them juveniles (i.e. without white heads and tails yet).

I got one sequence with an eagle coming into to land near another on already perched on a rock. Notice how the one in the air has extended legs/talons.

The eagle that he is joining appears to be vocalizing (open beak) and still has some white feathers mixed in with the brown – not quite an adult probably.

Note the 6 eagles on the dame abutments (2 adults on the closest one…and 1 adult with 3 juveniles on the far one).

A few minutes later – the adult on the far abutment has moved closer to the other adults. The juveniles are on their own.

The dam did not appear to have all its turbines in operation so there were not as many stunned fish around for the eagles. Cormorants would fly up close to the spillway and then float down river getting fish along the way.

I saw a few Great Blue Herons but then when I got home I noticed even more in my pictures…like this one flying past a bald eagle on a rock.

The Great Blue Heron I noticed the most while I was there was on a point of rocks for a very long time. I didn’t ever see it catch a fish so maybe it was savoring a fish it caught before I noticed it. The cormorants in the background are flying toward the dam (to the left in the picture) and would then float back down stream as they looked for breakfast.

Now for a little game. How many Great Blue Herons do you see in this picture (click on the image to see it larger)?

I count 6. Now for one a little more difficult. This one has Bald Eagles and Great Blue Herons. How many of each bird can you find (the smaller, dark birds are cormorants…don’t bother counting them)?

I count 6 eagles (4 adults, 2 juveniles) and 9 herons. The next one has more eagles in the air. How many Bald Eagles and Great Blue Herons in the image below?

4 eagles in the air (3 adults and 1 juvenile) and one eagle in the rocks. The herons are more of a challenge because there are so many. There are at least 12 (note – one is on the far right catching a fish, the body is hidden behind a rock but the neck and head are showing). What about the image below…the last of this game of eagle and heron counting.

There are 4 eagles (only the back is seen of one of them) – all with white heads. But there are 17 herons!

And now for one plant from near the dam. I took a picture of the Princess Tree back in back in February.

Here is what it looks like today. Still non-native and invasive…and growing beside the parking lot at the base of Conowingo Dam.