It’s a Lifer!
JamieDrake©
Today was a pretty awesome birding day! I spent hours at Joe Overstreet Landing and found this amazing bird. I had never seen a Curlew before today. It was very accommodating allowing me to sit and watch and photograph as it pranced around the marshlands I was sitting in. I took so many photos and found most of them appealing in some way just because this bird is quite a show stopper.
Other birds I saw while there include a Female Northern Harrier, a pair of Caracara, a pair of Bald Eagles, Kestrels, Sandhill Crane, Red Shoulder Hawks, Boat Tailed Grackles (that managed to decorate my van in a birdy fashion), Red-Winged Blackbirds, Wilson’s Snipe, Black Skimmers (there were about 20!), Gulls and Terns, Yellow Rumped Warblers, Palm Warblers, Lesser Yellow-Legs, Coots, Moorhens, Anhinga, Belted Kingfisher, Black Vulture and Turkey Vulture. I did not get my Snail Kite, the Whooping Cranes, or the Fox Squirrel I so wanted to photograph!
Later, I went to Three Forks Marsh Prairie Lakes Unit and drove out to Lake Jackson where I found two beautiful Limpkin, multiple pairs of Snail Kites, and a few warbler species.
Tonight I am only posting this Curlew Collage I made, but there will be many more on the way!
All the photos were taken with a Nikon d7000 and a Nikkor 80-400mm VR 4.5 lens. I think I shot these in Aperture or Shutter Mode with some changes to EV and depth.
Get Swamped this weekend, there’s no better place to be! -Jamie
**If you are reading this in your email box you may want to come on back to the blog to see the photos in their full glory!**
Great catch on the curlew! We have one that hangs out at Fort Desoto but he is usually behind the sanctuary ropes. I was going to try to head over to Joe Overstreet in the next couple of weekends. Caracaras are still on my list to get.
You’ll definitely get the Caracara there at Joe Overstreet!
I really want to go to Fort Desoto one day, I’ve seen such wonderful shorebird photos from that area.
We went to Joe Over street one day with the SCBWF. The curlew was there that day too. He’s a great bird. I think he likes to show off too. He knows he is the star of the show.