Tag Archives: MN North: Duluth Harbor

Days 155 to 156: Birds of Contrasting Color (photos)

Everyone likes to take photographs during the golden hour. The soft light provides the opportunity achieving top details with shadowing on one’s photographs. However, here in northern Minnesota during the summer, the sun rises around 5 am. Not everyone wants to get out of bed “before” dawn to arrive on a photo location by sunrise.

Here are three photos taken over the past two days. While the colors of the purple finch taken during the evening golden hour, the other two photographs utilize whites, browns, reflections and grays and still are interesting. Moral of the story, use what’s available and create some interesting pictures!

Day 155: Purple Finch during the Golden Hour
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Day 156: A Gull Study

Gull Rock and the Happy Hooker
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Killdeer and Friend!
156-Birds-365-Gull-Killdeer

 

Day 103: Northern Migration Termination

The migration of birds north is temporarily terminated in the Duluth, Minnesota harbor. Every inland lake to our east, west and north is still ice bound (May 5th). Thus, even though Lake Superior is still 60+% covered with ice itself, it is the only only show in town in terms of open water for ducks. The harbor would not be ice free if not for the efforts of the US Coast Guard icebreakers to get the shipping season started.

Here are some photos from today. At a glance one could easily see thousands of ducks. I also have a short video of a few of the ducks taken shortly before sunset.

Northern Migration Termination Photos!
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The teal clan rest … blue winged and green!
103-Birds-365-Green-Winged-Teals-Resting-3 103-Birds-365-Green-Winged-Teals-Resting-2 103-Birds-365-Green-Winged-Teals-Resting-1

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The lesser scaups get in on the act
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A flock of horned grebes
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The Superior, Wisconsin lighthouse (note the ice out on Lake Superior)
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