Couple From This Morning

This one is for Keith. Keep looking for those Bald Eagles, Keith! This one was next to the Willits reservoir this morning right off Highway 101. The Band-tailed Pigeon was from our backyard. May everyone have a great weekend and God bless, chris both images were create with a Canon 7D and a Canon 100-400 IS Ver1

Birding

On Monday I went birding with Lenore. I have always been a casual birder. I would bird only to ID what it was that I was photographing. Mondays expedition to the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge was one of the few times that I was birding with photography thrown in and not the other way around. We had our field guides and we pretty much stuck to ID ing the waterfowl and a few smaller birds such as a Black Phoebe and one LBJ (Little Brown Job an unknown sparrow). One of the highlights of the day was spotting a Bald Eagle way off in the distance near the viewing platform and seeing some Blacktail Deer out in the open. It's always such a wonderful feeling to be out on the refuge with all of the sights and sounds around you. The weather was simply beautiful and we had a marvelous time.God's blessings upon your day, chris All images created with a Canon 7D and a Canon 100-400 IS lens.

Sign of the Times

I spent all morning sorting images. Some blog themes are starting to develop as I'm editing. Today's theme is raptors on signs. There are an incredible amount of raptors to be found in the Klamath Basin. As today's title indicates they love to perch on refuge signs. In fact they seem to prefer them over trees.The most dominant species seemed to be immature Redtail Hawks. I was amazed at how approachable they were using my pick up as a blind. As long as your approach was slow and careful they would hold. Enjoy today's raptors. God's love and blessings to all, chris

Thousand Mile Eagle

This afternoon I got back from a fantastic trip photographing deer, raptors and waterfowl on two refuges and a national monument that are close too and straddle the border between California and Oregon. My photography buddy Joe Benoit and I visted Lava Beds, Tule Lake and Lower Klamath refuges over a period of three full days of photography.I ended up putting over a thousand miles on my pick up truck. This Bald Eagle image was taken just as we were leaving Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge this morning to drive home. I have a lot of editing to do over the next few weeks. It's going to take me awhile! Enjoy and God bless, chris

An Albion Paddle

Today I took my Ultimate Watercraft Kayak for a long paddle up the Albion River on the North Coast of California. I went with my friend Joe and his wife Susie. We caught the incoming tide just perfectly and went as far as we could up river. On the return trip we timed it just right and hit the out going tide for the trip down river. To top it off the onshore wind didn't kick up at all. You can't ask for much better than that.

As we floated and paddled along we spotted a lot of seals. I got really close to a Cormorant and a Pacific Loon. The best sighting of the day was when Joe spied a Bald eagle up in a snag. I even got some sparrow images. The weather was perfect for a great day on the river.

God's love and blessings to all,

chris

Note: All of my kayak photography is done with a Native Watercraft Ultimate 14.5 Kayak. I use a custom made camera mount that I made specially to fit the kayak. Details on how to build the mount can be found here.

http://diyphotocheapodepot.blogspot.com/2011/04/kayak-camera-support.html

Native Watercraft's site is here.

http://nativewatercraft.com/boat.cfm?id=7