Middle Creek WMA

Well, the Sandhill Crane is still at Middle Creek. Its been there for several weeks now and I have to wonder if its because of the nice fall weather we have been having. With this recent cold snap and possible snow tomorrow morning I wonder if its going to take off and head down to Florida. Unfortunately it was too far away to get a good enough view to take pictures but maybe I will post them later after I have gone through all my images.
The ducks were nice, with the shovelers being very photogenic. I even took a digivid of them swirling around and "shoveling" which I had never seen so upclose before.



As i was leaving a Red-tailed Hawk flew over the road and landed very close so I pulled over. When it didn't fly I decided to pull out the scope and miracle of miracles it stayed put only 10ft off of the road for at least 10 minutes while I snapped about 60 pictures of it at different angles. Here is the only one I edited so far, and it is not the best shot I got.

Cool Owl Videos

I have recently run across several cool owl videos. This first one is from 2006 in nw Montana where they had a large number of Snowy Owls move into the area. Check it out on explorebiodiversity.com.

This second video is a Barred Owl being attacked by a pair of Blue-gray Gnatcatchers. It is amazing how calm this owl is as the birds bombard his head.



And lastly, here is some footage of a Burrowing Owl, a western species that actually lives in the ground.