Birds and Nature

I don't know what it was about this female Long-tailed Duck but first the American Coots chased her away then 2 Redhead Ducks did the same. After she swam close to the cliffs she tucked her head, closed here eyes and appeared to rest (though even with the shelter of these cliffs her feet were always moving to keep her in place). After awhile several American Coots swam close in. She opened her eyes to watch them. As they swam at her she untucked her head and swam away. This happened several times and the top pic shows one of the coots as it was pursuing her. Then after she came back in and was resting again two Redheads started swimming after her as shown in the bottom pic. After she swam distant from the other ducks, they let her be. Finally I watched her come back in close to the shelter of the cliffs for a third time and this time she did not let the other ducks intimidate her. She appeared to vocalize as shown in a pic on the previous post which may have communicated...

I drove around Brush Hollow Reservoir trying to get a closer view of the Long-tailed Duck. After losing track of her for awhile I refound her from the cliff area on the west side of the reservoir. After awhile she came close to the cliff area to rest from the winds as this side provided some shelter which a flock of American Coots, a few American Wigeon and 2 Redhead Ducks were also taking advantage of. The duck was only about 200-250 feet away when I took the top pic. However, this close a photo would not have come out so nicely in the now strong and gusty winds (as I have to stand on a point overlooking the reservoir with no protection from the winds that were shaking everything) because I used a tripod and my new camera let me take photos at 1/8000 of a second which avoided much of the wind shake. I really like the middle pic as it shows the duck with it's bill open. It may have been vocalizing to the nearby ducks (more on that in next post). And I liked the bottom ...

This afternoon, while doing a little birding to see what is around now that I am back from a long trip to So Texas, I drove out to Brush Hollow Reservoir about 15 northwest of Canon City to see if the recent high winds had blown anything unusual in. Indeed far in the distance I spotted this female Long-tailed Duck. She was more than 400 feet away when I took the top pic which is greatly enlarged from what I saw since I used my 400 mm lens with a 1.4 extender. Since my new Canon 60d dslr camera is not full frame the photo has an additional 1.6 magnification so the combination is approximately equivalent to a photo taken by a 900 mm lens or about 18 times the size seen with naked eyes. It is hard to see the little duck in that top pic but it, and a slightly larger Common Goldeneye near it, are directly under the text. The bottom pic is just an enlargement of the top pic. I took the pic from the slight elevation on the east side of the reservoir at the top of the boat ramp beca...