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Ode to the Sparrow – Photo/Haiku of the Day

Ode to a Sparrow

A whisper in the grass

“Just a sparrow”, overlooked.

Autumn’s hidden jewel

Le Conte's Sparrow - Ammodramus leconteii

We’re approaching mid-September, and with it, one of my favorite birding migrations of the year. Warblers? Fall shorebirds? Migrating raptors? No, I treasure early to mid-Autumn for the wonderful array of sparrow species that migrate through eastern South Dakota. Among them are one of my top 3 species of all time…the Le Conte’s Sparrow. No “little brown job”…not “just a sparrow”…the Le Conte’s Sparrow is a brilliant array of complex patterns and beautiful warm tones.  With a reputation as a “skulker”, they’re a prized birding target for many, but during fall migration here, I’ve found them to be very approachable and rather easy to photograph. Along with the other 20 or so sparrow species that migrate through in the fall, a sparrow bonanza is just around the corner!

 

Photo/Haiku of the Day – Season of the Bobolink

Season of the Bobolink

Tinkly spring-time song

Fades away as summer ends.

Golden autumn fire

Autumn Bobolink - Dolichonyx oryzivorus

Bobolink in the warm dawn sun. This morning I went to a remnant tallgrass prairie patch and found a small group of Bobolinks. Males have lost their bold black-and-white breeding plumage, and share the same warm brown plumage as the females now. Rather than post as simply the “photo of the day”, thought today we’d take it one step further to my first ever “Photo / Haiku of the day”.

No feathers! Not even fur! POTD…

Given we were on vacation for 2 weeks recently, and I was gone on travel for work last week, it’s been a while since I’ve been out birding locally.  With a great forecast temps, light winds, and partial cloud cover, it was shaping up to be a perfect day for bird photography!  I left at dawn this morning with the intention of finding migrating shorebirds and other goodies.

I didn’t want to commit to a long drive up to Lake Thompson where I was pretty much guaranteed of finding shorebird habitat somewhere. Given how wet our summer has been and the rain we had when I was gone last week, I thought there would likely be some standing water around locally…perfect habitat for migrating shorebirds. I was wrong! There were a few areas of standing water, but with crops at almost full height and other vegetation quite lush from the wet summer, most of those wet spots were hidden or surrounded by vegetation. Several did have a few shorebirds, but I never did get any photo opportunities.

The one great photo opportunity for today was a true rarity for me…something without feathers. Something without fur (a target of opportunity I always shoot when out birding). I was driving in western Minnehaha County about half an hour after sunrise, and saw an old…combine (?) in a partially cut wheat field. I say “combine” because it was so old, so simple a piece of farm equipment, that I don’t know what else you’d call it.  Curiously, it was sitting on the fence row right by the road, in a small area of cut wheat in a much bigger wheat field, and with a brightly painted “John Deere” sign facing the road. I couldn’t have designed a better photo opportunity, and with the warm morning light, I spent a good 30 minutes getting various styles of photos of the scene.

With such a perfect scene, I do wonder if it WAS some kind of display that someone had set up, but regardless of why it was there, I thank the owner for providing the photo opportunity!  It turned out to be a great photo day, despite few opportunities to actually shoot birds.

John Deere in the Wheat Field

An old but brightly colored piece of farm equipment, sitting in a partially harvested wheat field. Too perfect a photo opportunity to have occurred without someone actually designing the scene!

Blizzard-inspired Drawing – American Woodcock

I don’t draw a lot any more…perhaps twice a year at most.  Not sure why, as I really enjoy it when I do drag out all the colored pencils and give it a go.  With the blizzard this weekend, I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to draw. The species is actually inspired BY the blizzard.  American Woodcocks show up here in early April, and are already on their breeding grounds. They’ve already been doing their spectacular, unique display flights in the late evenings, spiraling up into the sky and diving back down, producing series of twittering and tweeting sounds as they go.  They normally feed heavily on earthworms.  When the blizzard hit, I remembered the posts of people seeing their displays here already this spring, and was wondering how they’d handle the blizzard. Inspiration leading to this, a colored pencil drawing of an American Woodcock.

American Woodcock Drawing - Scolopax minor

Colored pencil drawing of an American Woodcock – By Terry Sohl

Fringe Benefits of Birding

White-tailed Deer Fawn - Odocoileus virginianus

A young white-tailed deer fawn. He clearly wanted mom, given how he kept looking around and bleating for her.

Ever since I got my first SLR camera 15 years ago, I’d say 98% of the photos I’ve taken have been of birds.  When I go birding, as I did this afternoon, I have binoculars and camera in hand, and birds on my mind.  On rare occasions, I’ll note some spectacular landscape and take a photo, but it has to be pretty spectacular! After all, if I want to shoot a landscape, I have to change lenses…WAY too much trouble for a bird photographer!  One of the fringe benefits of going out birding though IS running into unexpected sights, be it a beautiful landscape or some creature that happens to cross your path. If I get a good opportunity to shoot an animal other than a bird, I will generally do it, unless it’s something really common.  I usually don’t give a second thought to all the deer I run across, given how common they are.  But today was something different.

As I turned on a gravel road, there on the side of the road in front of me was a tiny, spotted White-tailed Deer fawn.  With all the deer I’ve seen, it’s not often I see young fawns, and I had absolutely no photos of them until today.  When I turned the corner, he looked at me and gave a little bleat.  I got the camera in hand, fully expecting him to run before I could get a photo, but…he just stood there, and gave another bleat.  I took a number of photos while he looked around, occasionally bleating, but he didn’t move more than a few steps.

I’m sure he was calling for mom, but despite watching the little guy/gal for 15 minutes or so, I never saw the mother deer.  He slowly meandered off into a grassy area before laying down, although I could still occasionally hear him bleating from his now hidden location.

It’s tough out there for a little guy! As I drove away I couldn’t help but feel a little worried about him, hoping his mom came back soon.

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