ruby-crowned kinglet – Picture Walks

May 4, 2023

It was the best day ever– as good or better than all the other best days I’ve ever had taking pictures! After a long, cold, Michigan winter, and a wet, dreary spring, I was more than ready for a warm, sunny day. But it didn’t start out warm, or sunny. At seven o’clock in the morning, it was only 39 degrees and overcast. I had left the house thinking it was going to get warmer much faster than it did, and hadn’t dressed appropriately! Standing still taking pictures was bone-chilling cold. By mid-afternoon, though, the temperature had climbed to a blissful 65 degrees and I wrapped myself up in all its warmth.

**American Robin: The first thing to greet me this morning**

This particular picture walk started out down by the creek behind our house shortly after sunrise. I was hoping to get some good reflection shots of our resident wood ducks swimming along on the perfectly still waters, but it’s hard to catch a wood duck! They swim off in the opposite direction as soon as they catch a glimpse of me! Today, though, I was lucky. Either they didn’t notice I was there, or they didn’t care, and I took more than enough pictures to keep me happy—at least for a while!

After an hour or so of wood ducks, I continued along a path that followed the creek into our nearby woods hoping to find yellow warblers or kinglets. The kinglets ultimately cooperated, but the warblers did not. I love finding kinglets, but they are an extremely challenging bird to photograph as they flit non-stop from one well-hidden branch to another. I took dozens of shots before pulling myself away and heading home for lunch.

Within an hour, I was off again to another small creek and more pictures! This creek, like the one behind our house, widens to form a small pond, and is an excellent place to find a wide variety of birds. To the naked eye, though, it often seems as if the pond has nothing much to offer. With a telephoto lens, or a good pair of binoculars, a whole new world can open up!

I have visited this pond many, many times over the years, but it wasn’t until fairly recently that I discovered the very best place to get good, clear pictures of the birds on the water. Unfortunately, that ‘very best place’ comes with a modicum of anxiety.

In order to access my ‘very best place’, I have to go behind a small, private business along a very busy road. Once behind the building, I have to walk up their back steps to an attached deck where I quietly park myself under their lovely gazebo at the edge of the water. Every time I use this spot, which isn’t often, I fully expect someone to come out of the building and ask me to leave, or to at least ask me what I’m up to!

No one ever does.

Today, however, I really, really wanted someone to come out!! I wanted somebody to ask me what I was doing so I could show them all the beautiful birds they were missing, like the Northern shoveler, the blue-winged teal, the gadwall, the hooded merganser, and the magnificent green heron catching a fish! I wanted to show them the hundreds of turtles sunning themselves on the rocks and logs, and I wanted them to hear the orchestra of birds playing right outside their back door!

But no one ever came.

**A beautiful Green Heron waiting to pounce on a fish!**

I was grateful, though, as I always am, to have this little slice of heaven to myself, to not be extricated from my perch, and to find so many beautiful creatures to photograph!

**Two Canada Geese and a slew of Painted Turtles sunning themselves**

It really was the best day ever!

November 4, 2022

This time of year, when all the beautiful summer flowers have died back, when many of the birds and most of the butterflies have already left for the season, and when my favorite amphibian, the American bullfrog, sits in the muck at the bottom of a pond until spring, I’m often hard-pressed to find things to photograph.

**My favorite amphibian, the American Bullfrog, before hibernating for the winter**

**An Eastern Phoebe and a Common Buckeye**

On a recent picture walk, for example, I trudged around for hours with my heavy camera equipment slung across my shoulders hoping for at least one tiny bird or one late-season dragonfly to land nearby. But all I managed to capture that day was a chipmunk, a fungus, and a fern!! The fungus and the fern were mostly desperation shots (for lack of anything better to shoot), and the chipmunk, well, chipmunks are just cute. I had hoped for so much more!

**Just one of a bazillion adorable chipmunks running around the woods!**

As the world is slowly being drained of color, and the weather vacillates wildly from blissfully pleasant to bitterly disgusting, it takes a lot more motivation, and a whole lot more creative thinking on my part to go for a picture walk. It’s so much harder to find things to photograph! My slow deliberate rambles become even slower as I take more time to investigate whether some nondescript plant has any ‘picture potential’. I ponder the possibilities of a curled-up leaf, or a milkweed pod, as well as a host of other ubiquitous things, like mushrooms, mallards, and geese, to see if something ordinary can look extraordinary—or at least interesting! Usually, if I look hard enough and long enough, I’ll find something!

**Interesting leaf patterns and designs**

**Milkweed Pod bursting forth** **with seeds**

**Apples and Pears at the Kalamazoo Farmers’ Market**

To keep the boredom from setting in, I rotate through a variety of different nature preserves, both near and far. They may have the same birds, and the same dying plants that I have near to home, but the setting is new! I also go out at different times of the day, in different kinds of weather, with one lens or the other, just to mix things up and to keep myself from losing interest.

**A Ruby-crowned Kinglet and a Yellow-rumped Warbler**

Since I started this hobby several years ago, I’ve taken well over 200,000 pictures! I don’t really ‘need’ another mallard, goose, or chipmunk, but I do need all the collateral benefits that come with every walk in the woods, every amble through a field of goldenrod, and every contemplative moment I’ve spent beside a pond watching a bird glide effortlessly along, or a great blue heron stand motionless for hours waiting for lunch to swim by. When I’m out on a picture walk, totally immersed in the task at hand, there’s absolutely no room left in my head for anything else. It’s the perfect antidote to life’s worries.

It’s those collateral benefits that keep me going back for more.

Tag: ruby-crowned kinglet

The Best Day Ever

Collateral Benefits