Well we ended the year with one last trip to one of our favorite birding honey-spots: Sardis Lake, MS. Once again, this local man made lake did not disappoint…spoiler alert, we found a wonderful Bald Eagle out in the wild!
That’s right, if you watch all of the pictures in the slideshow, you’ll see the beautiful Bald Eagle. Monica spied him all the way on the other side of the lake with her monocular. I snapped off a bunch of pictures with all kinds of different settings, as it was very overcast today and he was so far away. We tried driving to different locations to get different angles and hopefully closer, but to no avail. We even parked and walked about a mile to a point where we thought we would be up close and personal with him, but he was still too far around the corner and we just couldn’t see him. After that, it was almost 5 pm and getting way too dark. So, thrilled that we got to see a Bald Eagle in the wild, but sure wish we could have got a little closer.
Another hard to capture bird that we got a good shot of today: the Belted Kingfisher. These guys are very hard to get a good photo of because they are always on the move and are very fast. I’m not a fan of getting birds on wires, I prefer to get them in their natural habitat, but this was the only shot I got of this guy. He landed here and then flew off and didn’t come back while we were there waiting.
Another rare find today as well: the Hooded Merganser. What a beautiful duck, both the male and female. We actually saw about 10 of them, but no matter where we went, they always seem to either fly away or swim farther and farther away from us. I did manage to get a few good shots.
The juvenile Red Headed Woodpecker was pretty cool as well. At first I wasn’t sure what he was exactly, until I got home and was able to put him on the laptop and see a clearer picture of him. You can see that he is just starting to get his red head feathers in and is losing some of his juvenile plumage. No doubt a product of this year’s mating season.
So even though it was a little cool, a little cloudy, and even sprinkled a little once, you just never know what you might find. Be sure to press the “Like” button below and leave me a comment or two. A shout out to a new viewer, bringing the country list to 26: Bosnia and Herzegovina. Please share the blog with all of your friends and thanks for the support. I hope you all have a wonderful and exciting New Year! From my camera to yours, Enjoy Our Wonderful World!
RM Goldsmith Photography 