After four days away from home, I am happily back in northern Minnesota. Sun comes up at 5:15 am, and shortly after sunrise I visited the mouth of the Lester River in search of the Common Merganser family. The early morning sun makes for fantastic photography conditions, and also if one takes some care … allows one to get much closer to birds.

It took 15 minutes, but I eventually found my young family. If I had walked the shore towards the mergansers my visit would have been very short, but instead while still over 100 yards away from Momma Merganser I sat down on the rocks. Over the course of 15 minutes, directly in her line of sight with the sun, I inched forward “on my behind” towards the birds. Taking this amount of time, and never standing allowed me to get within 15 yards of the mergansers and watch them for almost twenty minutes. These photos are the result of that session, but the key point is … get low right at sunrise (don’t walk) and come at your desired subjects from right out of the sun. If you move slowly enough, it is amazing how close one may get to some types of wildlife.

Common Merganser Family at Sunrise
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Wild Tailed Deer Fawn
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Chestnut-Sided Warbler and Cedar Waxwing … the waxwing actually has Lake Superior in the background while the warbler is set off against the sky … interesting comparison of blue on a crystal clear day!