Day 161: The Birds of Rainy Lake

As noted in my prior post, Molly and I took an overnight jaunt up to Rainy Lake in northwestern Ontario. This lake is a huge vast wilderness with 929 miles of shoreline and over 1800 islands. In short, it is a perfect location for the outdoor bird photographer. I hope you enjoy just a few of the photos I took over the course of four hours on Rainy Lake including my two bald eagle pictures.

It is worth noting that before starting this 365 day photography project I would never have had the skill to pull off the majestic bald eagle in flight photo. All my camera settings were on manual to optimize this photograph … white balance, shutter speed, aperture, and iso settings. Things worked!

One interesting learning from our afternoon on Rainy Lake was I had no idea that cormorants and pelicans hunted together. On our much smaller NorthStar Lake (1,100 acres) we only have a few pelicans on occasion, and no cormorants.

Bald Eagles rule the waters of Rainy Lake!
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Pelicans and Cormorants fish together
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An afternoon break on one of Rainy Lake’s islands
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Rusty the Wonderdog!
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Herring Gulls hoping for a cormorant egg snack!
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Rapids at one of Rainy Lakes inflows
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160-D4-Rainy-Lake-Sunset-3_wm 160-D4-Rainy-Lake-Sunset-Loon_wmDay is done … Gone the sun (taps)

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