Wild Delaware

A pair of mute swan glide across a Sussex County mill pond this morning.

This morning was a bad time to be a minnow in the Prime Hook salt marsh. A great blue heron was catching fish after fish and tossing them down the hatch.

A great blue heron comes in for a landing on the Great Marsh near Lewes today.

Hundreds of snow geese take off before sunrise this morning from a fresh water pond at Prime Hook National Wildlife refuge.

Today dawned with a sky full of color and I found a crow welcoming the morning from a treetop. Then tonight after sunset there were two trees standing tall above the salt marsh with the last glow of the day behind them. It was a beautiful way to end the day.

A juvenile red-tailed hawk (above) and a juvenile bald eagle keep a sharp eye out as twilight falls over Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge.

Today dawned dark and dreary with a leaden sky and little hope for good wildlife photography. But by midafternoon it was sunny and warm with the temperature reaching 58 degrees. And even with the surprisingly balmy January day in Delaware I had no idea I would be photographing a micro world of honeybees and other warm-weather insects until I found a tree just buzzing with activity. Honeybees were busy collecting as much pollen as possible and even a fly and a Red Admiral (butterfly) emerged from hibernation for a mid-winter snack.

Watch towers were built by the army during World War II along the Delaware coast help guard against Nazi submarine attacks on allied shipping. Today, these silent sentinals of a long past era are iconic landmarks of Delaware’s beaches and one in Cape Henlopen State Park in Lewes is open to visitors.

This morning dawned clear and cold forcing the waterfowl to circle their wagons – so to speak – to keep a spot of open water on ponds in Delaware. Here is dawn over the Atlantic Ocean between Lewes and Rehoboth, two Canada geese making a slippery, icy landing and mallards braving the cold.

Large numbers of snow geese are here for the winter and continue to feed in wheat fields near Bombay Hook and Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuges.