Category Archives: Year 8

Steam Shovel Sally’s Kids

“Steam Shovel Sally’s” kids on Lavaque Road in the Duluth area are learning how to fly today). Lots of fun to watch, and unlike in the Olympics, the Osprey chicks are not earning perfect 10’s and sticking their landings. Still learning about upwind approaches! I suspect these young raptors will be fully fledged in a day or two, then come fishing lessons.

Ten years ago a gentleman than owns a construction firm hoisted a shovel high in the sky. Within two years the ospreys adopted “the bucket”!

The Eyes!

Take-Off!

Hanging Out (2 different birds)

Meanwhile Back at the Nest (three attempts to land)

Bee Balm Beauties

Soon January will be here with its -30F degree weather, but for the moment it is summer and all our garden’s  perennials are ablaze in their glory. In addition, the Black-Eyed Susans in our yard’s tall grasses do the landscape with lots of yellow. Thus, I spent another evening with Chardonnay and Hummers!

The trend continues that I have not seen any male Ruby-Throats for several days. I suspect they have begun their long migration to South America. However the youngsters are madly fighting over the Bee Balm. On quiet evenings (not much wind), I can even hear the hummingbirds singing!

This one hummer hides in a tree ten yards from the flowers. If another Ruby-Throat ventures to close to our garden, this bird enters attack mode.

Surrounding our Bee Balm are lots and lots of Purple Cone Flowers


Finally some camera notes … while I do very little post processing of my images, these are the basics which I often tweak:

  • Open JPG file in Camera Raw (I do not shoot in raw)
  • Push clarity up to about 40. Helps brings out feathers
  • Increase Shadows by about one degree (+12 in Photoshop Elements). I tend to underexpose a touch to avoid images being blown out. Tweaking the shadows helps me bring the exposure up in post processing.
  • Minor crops of images to emphasize different features of photo (never use digital zoom)
  • Use “Auto Enhance Contrast”
  • Tweak “Shake Reduction” (photo needs to first be in focus for this edit to work)

As a reminder I use a basic monopod, and “never” shoot in Auto. I tend to first focus upon my subject using Aperture Priority to learn the camera’s desired shutter speed. I often then switch to Shutter Priority and expose at a slightly faster speed. With my Canon SX-70 because of the small sensor, I tend to select the minimum ISO of 100 (need good light). With my Sony A6300 I allow the camera to choose the ISO between 100 and 800. Remember, the lower the ISO … the higher the quality of the end image.

Black-Billed Magpies at Sax-Zim Bog

Magpies are common out west, and are definitely expanding their range into Minnesota, but would still be considered rare in NE Minnesota. I watched a family of seven Black-Billed Magpies up at Sax-Zim Bog this morning. The magpies were hanging around the intersection of Zim Road and Hwy #7. Use your ears, and you’ll likely find them. They were on both sides of the highway, and often foraging right next to the RR tracks (south of Zim Rd).

This is a repeat performance from my birding experience over on Northstar Lake two weeks back. It was delightful.