Easter at the Bog

[Kate K]

For a long time now, Adam and I have been admiring everyone's bird photos on the forum, so finally we decided to take a stab at it. So on Easter we headed up to the illusive Sax/Zim Bog in high hopes of capturing some birds. Despite half the day being pretty crummy outside, we had a pretty good turn out. Though we quickly discovered that birds are much more difficult than we thought!

I believe this one is a Northern Flicker

Pileated Woodpecker - we gave him quite a scare, but I somewhat salvaged a photo

There was some ducky love going on in the bog!

Northern Harrier while he was hunting

But this was the topper of the day by far! A Northern Hawk Owl

To our surprise, the owl continued to hunt right in front of us!

Isn't it considered rude to eat in front of guests!

And if I thought the day couldn't get much better for a first time out....

a partridge in a pear tree....or just a tree!

All in all, for a first try and having very limited glass I think that it turned out to be a good day. I fell in love with the thrill of finding birds and this was the catalyst for ordering some new glass!

[ricerdude69]

It was an awesome day, we saw quite a few birds and managed some good pictures considering our short glass. Here's some I got:

This red squirrel obviously got confused watching all the birds near by...

Here he is screaming at us, I think we were too close to the feeder for his liking.

Our friendly Northern Hawk Owl

Doing his best exorcist impression...

And on our drive home we came across this (correct me if I'm wrong) broadwinged hawk.

[Dbl]

Wow, a lot of variety here!

[shortfatguy]

Looks like you guys had a god outing! I have the same issue with not having a big enough lens to get the really good wildlife shots!

[JayinMN]

Looks like you guys had a lot of great subjects. The bog gets very little attention after winter but there are still a lot of great new birds to be found in spring as you found out.

The hawk is a red tailed hawk.

[Hwood]

Looks like it was a good trip

[Steve Foss]

Nice stuff from both of you. The Bog's a great place for a fun time with the birds.

[dockothebay]

Nice work you two! The Bog really is a special place isn't it? You saw a nice variety and that owl looks like he was really cooperative.

[finnbay]

Great variety! Lots of stuff to see. Particularly like the hawk owls. Well done guys!

[ricerdude69]

Looks like you guys had a lot of great subjects. The bog gets very little attention after winter but there are still a lot of great new birds to be found in spring as you found out.

The hawk is a red tailed hawk.

Thanks, I thought it might be...

[ShawnZ]

Nice collection of images. The bog is a fantastic place to do spring bird photography and extremely under rated and under covered compared with the winter months.