The Park Point Recreation Playing Fields (Duluth) are continuing to produce since the rain two nights ago … not huge numbers but some nice variety of shore birds. Found this buff-breasted sandpiper and a pair a semi-palmated plovers this morning.

Flash! Boom!

All summer I have been trying to capture the flash which precedes boom. Photographing lightning strikes is not easy. First one needs a severe thunderstorm, and then one must add a crazy photographer who wants to head out during the night to chase lightning bolts. I am one of those crazy photographers, but I do follow safe procedures:

1. If the storm has a tornado watch, I never head out
2. If the weather radar signature looks horrible, I wait at home for a storm to pass
3. I never photograph out in the open. Aside from getting wet, one becomes a prime target for lightning. No image is worth death.

This Spring I found the perfect spot for my lightning photographic endeavors. Duluth has a large stone gazebo well up the hill from which I may keep both myself and my camera equipment dry and somewhat shielded from the wind. In addition, given the topography of the land and trees behind the gazebo (7th St just west of Lake Ave), it is not out in the open, but has a decent view down to the harbor. I have visited this spot 4 times this Summer, generally in the middle of the night. Last night I struck paydirt! In fact, I would not be surprised if the storm was our last big event of the summer as we now head into fall. Here is the image: (other stories follow the Duluth Lightning image)

Lightning Strikes … Summer becomes Fall!

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Other Stories …

Thunder Storms with accompanying big rains yield interesting birds during the Fall migration. Often these storms are proceeded by strong winds which push migrating birds off their migration path. This morning the large ponds which had formed on the Park Point Playing Fields from last night’s rains yielded two American Golden Plovers. Similar to yesterday’s post, neither of these birds were in male breeding plumage, which makes ID’ing a challenge.

The age old question for ancient mariners … who has the right of way when meeting? A sailing ship or a duck? A US Coast Guard Cutter was called in to solve this dispute!

Found this migrating duck in an unusual position today!  🙂

We are celebrating the TallShipsDuluth festival. Even though the viking longship Drakken Harald did not make it to Duluth (bummer), we did get the duck! I actually found some fellow photographers reserving spots down on the canal at 5 am when I arrived to take some photos before sunrise.

Duck Meets Tall Ships

Earlier in the Morning … American Century departs the Duluth Harbor an hour before sunrise, and then looking out towards dawn (20 minutes prior to sunrise)