Wild Delaware

Snow geese and a variety of ducks were settling in for the evening on an impoundment at Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge tonight. Teal were coming in fast and furious and they were all but impossible to catch with a camera in the twilight.

Large flocks of snow geese taking off at dawn continue to be a great subject at Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge.

A great blue heron catches a minnow in the shallow salt water of Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge this morning.

How can you count snowflakes in a blizzard? That’s what it felt like this morning when a a blizzard of snow geese took off all at the same time from a fresh water pond at Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge. While I was shooting all I could do was wonder… how many?

And a female pintail flies over the thousands of snow geese.

Wildlife and autumn color continue in abundance at Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge with thousands of snow geese and large numbers of great blue herons in winter residence.

The morning after Thanksgiving dawned clear and cold and you could see the chill in the air by the way a great blue heron fluffed his feathers to keep warm.

When you are photographing a year in the life of wild Delaware you need to catch what wildlife is here at the moment. Sometimes it seems like I’m shooting a bird book rather than a book that will include everything from underwater life in ponds to deer and landscapes. But the birds are here now so that’s what I’m shooting. In the spring blackbirds, starlings and grackles pair up and nest then late every summer they begin to gather in the very large flocks that are so common in Delaware in the fall and winter. These blackbirds were gathering on powerlines at dusk just before settling into a tree for the night.

And at Prime Hook National Wildlife refuge it was autumn business as usual as the snow geese rise with the sun on Thanksgiving morning.

Tonight would have delighted Alfred Hitchcock as the skies over Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge were filled with what seemed like a million birds. First, I found a bald eagle surveying the scene about a half hour before sunset while behind me the marsh was filled with resting snow geese. All at once the geese took off and came back to land in the same tidal pool. So I found a spot behind the geese and waited for the sun to set in the hopes the geese would all take off again. As if on cue, they did.

There was a touch of frost along the edges of the salt marsh this morning and autumn colors were beginning to peak. Lots of snow geese were at Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge but they are getting shy now that duck and deer hunting seasons have begun and mornings echo with the distant thunder of shotguns.

A cormorant surfaces with a minnow just after sunrise this morning.