Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge
Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge was established on April 22, 1935 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
I love the beautiful early morning light, the wildflowers blooming in the foreground, how the sunlight is kissing the tops of the grasses and mountain tops, the snow and the lovely, fluffy clouds.
Red-necked Grebes are beautiful but wary subjects in the Centennial Valley. Some day I hope I will have images the show off their beauty in a much better way.
Last month and this month I wrote about Mountain Bluebirds in several posts that included images of adult males and females, today I am posting one image of the many fledglings I saw last week.
The Yellow Warbler in my image was singing along a creek lined with willows and although the bird is small in the frame I find this image appealing because of the simple lines, the bird's pose and the wonderful eye contact the bird gave me as it briefly looked towards me.
I want to thank Neil Paprocki for sharing information about Al Larson and the upcoming film The Bluebird Man, I have learned a lot from the web site and through my interview with Neil and I am all for learning more about the wonderful natural world around me.
I wanted to share some bird lift off images today so I rounded up a few that showed different styles of lift offs.
There are issues with this image which I will cover shortly but I really liked the pose of this Red-tailed Hawk, the spread of the wings, the flared tail and the great eye contact I was able to capture as the Red-tail looked down towards me as it flew in a bright blue Montana sky.
There were Mountain Bluebirds everywhere I looked on my recent trip to Montana where flashes of their brilliant blue plumage were a delight to my eyes.
Yellow-bellied Marmots are the western cousins of Groundhogs but unlike Groundhogs (Woodchucks) they aren't fabled critters that can predict spring and I am okay with that because spring gets here when it gets here.
This male Tree Swallow was perched on a fence post in western Montana last week when I photographed him while the morning light lit him up beautifully.
I photographed this mated pair of Red-tailed Hawks last week in western Montana as they soaked up the warming rays of the morning sun.
Stay tuned ... For more images from my Montana trip, it was awesome.
It won't be long before I start seeing juvenile Willets that are about the size of the one pictured here.
I've only had one opportunity to photograph Cassin's Finches so far and that was in the small town of Lakeview where the headquarters of Red Rock Lakes national Wildlife Refuge is located.
Swainson's Hawks are one of the three Buteos that I see with regularity on my visits to the Centennial Valley of Montana, Red-tailed and Ferruginous Hawks are the other two.
I've said before that owls fascinate me; probably more times than I can count, and Short-eared Owls are always a delight.
Last week I was Thinking Pink so this week I thought I would focus on the shades of blues found in wildflowers, birds, the sky and seas.
The only native true lark that lives and breeds in North America is the Horned Lark.
This male Tree Swallow in flight image was taken two years ago at Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge in Montana and for some reason I had not processed it until now.
Last summer I was able to see and photograph a juvenile Swainson's Hawk expelling a pellet in Beaverhead County, Montana.
This is a win/win proposal for the National Wildlife Refuge System and for everyone who visits them. For every person who is concerned about the future of out National Wildlife Refuges and for every organization who supports conservation of our public lands and the nation's wildlife.
Just a few Red-tailed Hawk images that I have been meaning to process and share.
This Western Tanager was photographed last summer at Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge in the Centennial Valley of Beaverhead County, Montana.
2012 was a fantastic year for me as a photographer and I am looking forward to the joys that 2013 will bring. Happy New Year to all.
Due to a crash in the vole population at Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge last summer there weren't many Short-eared Owls around the refuge but the few that were there were real beauties.
So, each time we see or hear Sandhill Cranes we are listening to and looking at a real living fossil.
This adult Swainson's had two juveniles nearby that were perched on the conifer tree that their natal nest was in and the sun was getting close to setting. Sometimes I wish I could "speak" raptor so I could know what they are saying.
Since I began photographing birds in Florida I have gotten used to getting wet to photograph shorebirds, wringing wet at times but my gear has never been as wet as it was the day I took these images from inside the pickup.
I don't always get what I want though; for example, I wanted this male Short-eared Owl (Asio flammeus) I photographed at Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge in southwestern Montana in good light.
The smoke-filled skies created interesting conditions during the sunrises I viewed in while in southwestern Montana recently.