Wild Delaware

When I was a teenager, my father built and installed a Wood Duck box on the stream right outside my bedroom window. Unfortunately, we never had Wood Ducks nesting in the box, we had Screech Owls. I still remember the first time I heard the Screech Owl’s song which can be described as a whistled whinny. What it really sounded like – the first time I heard it – was the horrible scream of a crime victim. After just a few days of getting used to the screech of my owl neighbors I learned to enjoy their unusual song.

Dozens of American Goldfinches continue to invade a field planted with lanceleaf coreopsis near Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge. These photographs are from my second visit to the field and I am still hoping to catch a bunch of these colorful little birds in one shot.

I’ve been trying to photograph a Green Heron nest with chicks and have not been very successful the past three days. So I have not been able to post any new images. This full moon setting is on the Broadkill yesterday morning. Today brings the first day of summer and, perhaps, a little better luck…

I wasn’t expecting to photograph Mute Swan this morning at Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge as they are more frequently found in Delaware in the winter. Beautiful to see and photograph, Mute Swan were introduced here from Europe where they live as tame birds on lakes in urban areas. Actually they are breeding birds from the Central Asian steppes. Here in Delaware this invasive species can eat as much as eight pounds of aquatic vegetation daily causing huge damage to the eco system of bays and ponds.

An American Goldfinch picks the seeds from a lanceleaf coreopsis late today. The seeds from this yellow flowering plant are a favorite food of this equally yellow bird.

Sunset last night brought a beautiful rainbow that connected both sides of the salt marsh at Canary Creek new Lewes.

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Colorful Green Herons are one of my favorite birds to photograph. They are such intent fisherman you can feel their concentration as they crouch in the shadows and on branches awaiting an unlucky fish to swim by. This year-old green heron was watching the water from low branches just above the surface. When it spotted a fish – somehow through a thick carpet of duckweed – it would pounce.

An American Kestrel – sometimes called a Sparrow Hawk – lands at its knothole nest with a beak-full of bug to feed its young today.  This tiny falcon is about the size of a robin and is possibly the most colorful American raptor. The American Kestrel catches anything from grasshoppers, dragonflies and other bugs to small snakes and mice. I have to thank famed local bird photographer Kim Steininger for showing me this nest.

Sunrise comes pretty early this time of year and I am usually out the door before 5:00 a.m. to get to where I will be shooting at sunrise. Sometimes there is good light and no wildlife. Other times there is wildlife and bad light. Today I had great light and an abundance of wildlife.

On a three-acre pond I saw 10 Great Blue Herons, about as many Great Egrets and a hundred or more Snowy Egrets all gathered to catch fish. Plus a couple of Black Skimmers glided by.All of these photographs were shot within an hour of sunrise today. There were so many fish the egrets would catch them and drop some just as fast perhaps because they wanted larger fish or maybe a different species. I was able to photograph them very close-up and it was a great show for an hour. By then they had their fill and fishing turned to just standing.

But it was a great day in the “office” for me!

Black Skimmers (above)

Great Blue Heron

Snowy Egret and Menhaden

Snowy Egret and Mummichog

Snowy Egrets and croaker

Snowy Egret

Snowy Egret