A New Day – 28 – A Great Find
In an earlier entry I posted some pictures of Great Blue Heron, Snow Geese, and White-tailed deer. I encountered these lovely subjects while walking along the Portage Creek Bicentennial Trail. Since I had gotten out there so late I decided I had to get back out there earlier in the day and lucky me this day was a great day. The sun was out and the temperature was about 41 or so. While I don’t recommend taking your dog with you on all photography shoots, I just couldn’t leave her in the house while I went out to enjoy the outdoors. We made it work although she gets a little unruly.
After so much snow, so much shoveling and getting stuck and unstuck, it was awesome to get out and feel the sun on my face. It wasn’t long before I wished I hadn’t worn my winter jacket, I guess I’ve forgotten what it means to have the sun beating down on you!
Sunshine on the glassy water’s surface! Ah, I can’t wait for spring.
Just think of the calming sound of the flowing water, imagine spring, breathe deep…we’re gonna make it!!!
I loved the sight of the water in the sunshine, its effortless movement over the rocks. I could only smile at its beauty. You can probably see that this wasn’t a large “fall” by any means but I think we can all still appreciate its simple, subtle, albeit small beauty. What you might not know is that this picture was taken under a freeway overpass with semis, SUVs, cars, and everything else you can imagine zooming by overhead. But should I focus on that? Should I let that get in my way?
In life there’s a tremendous number of things to marvel at. I’m grateful for the opportunity to even walk a trail and observe the wildlife that is around. I’m also really grateful that I can get home faster by taking the freeway. I’m happy to say that I did not let the overpass and its noise keep me from enjoying the beauty that did surround me.
This winter has been so cold, so long, so full of snow, so…wintery. But if you look through my 365 gallery and those of other photographers I think you’ll find a lot of things to marvel at, to smile, to raise your brows and say “Wow”. Let’s hold on to these energizing sensations, take some deep breaths, and get through the rest of this winter. When the sun is shining, put your hat on and brave the cold. When the sun rises, take in the cold air and appreciate that some day not far away that crisp cool air will be replaced by air that may be far more smothering. Let’s smile because it’s almost over, but maybe too we can smile to have seen it through. Which brings me to my pride and joy of this walk! Oh wait, you thought I was just going to go off on the creek some more? No, no…This was a first for me 
What’s that?
Even though the day was warm and the snow was melting, the trail was a tiny bit rough in that it was slushy and very uneven due in large part to the melting snow. But I did my best not to bust my butt, but keep my eyes up and my lens open. As I said in another post I saw a duck once that I couldn’t identify or photograph as it was dark. Remembering that mystery creature I made a point to keep an eye on the creek that was downhill from the trail. Maybe about 60 yards from the overpass I came across this trio swimming amongst Mallard pairs sleeping in the sunlight.
Female Hooded Merganser on left, male on right
Oh I was so excited (and still am!) because I’ve never seen Hooded Mergansers in real life before. They’re so beautiful. Their sexual dimorphism (physical differences between males and females) is pretty incredible, as is often the case with birds. But these birds are more sexually dimorphic than male and female Mallards (see Day 21 – The Trek). You can see that the male has a crest that they call a “hood”, whereas the female has a more traditional crest. And the male is colorful, fancy even, compared to the female.
Fuzzy close up on the pair
The quality of the above image isn’t so great because I was using my 100mm macro lens as an alternative telephoto and the creek was down a steep slope from the trail. Plus this trio (the third one, another male can be seen in the first photo) were really nervous. Unlike the Mallards that never even woke up from their naps the trio was immediately aware of me up on the trail and began swimming in the opposite direction. They also tried to take cover under some branches hanging over the water. I did my best to get clearer photos of them but it was pretty hard, and I felt bad chasing them around. Eventually I moved on. When I passed by on my way back they too were napping, I got a few shots but it wasn’t long before one of the males raised his “hood” and started to move, I quickly moved on. So I’m sharing some of the best of what I got, even though zooming in post-production didn’t reveal any clearer shots I’m still psyched!
He was stretching his wings perched on an underwater branch while my dog was pulling me the other way so I kinda got the shot.
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