Middle Falls Moonlight

WOW... it sure was cool watching the half moon over Middle Falls of the Pigeon River last night as the last of the daylight faded from the sky. Walking back to the car in the dark was fun, too. When you've got moonlight and a headlamp to guide your way, being in the woods at night is a magical experience.

Moose cow and calf on Teal Lake

(Click the image to view a larger version)

Today on my way to work I saw, for the first time, a Moose on the shoreline of Teal Lake. Not only that, but it was a cow Moose with a calf! To top it off, it was one of the Moose that have been collared by the Grand Portage Reservation Natural Resource Department! What a treat to see these animals today. The reservation has collared several Moose in order to track their movements over the course of two years and they will be using the collected data to help manage reservation lands for the benefit of Moose. I sat and watched this mother and child for about 10 minutes, and they barely moved. Just before I left the mother laid down in the grass and the calf followed suit. I wonder how long they stayed in this spot?

Dogwood Sunset

After spending a long afternoon hiking in the deep woods of northern Minnesota, I went down to the Lake Superior shoreline on Grand Portage Bay to photograph the sunset. After a quick look around, I found this piece of Red-Osier Dogwood laying in the shallow water. I don't know how it got there (wind, or perhaps someone threw it out there), but it made for an interesting foreground for this image. This image was captured with my Canon 17-40mm lens, shutter speed 2 seconds, aperture f16, ISO 100. I also used my Singh-Ray 3-stop reverse graduated ND filter.

A New Season

The trees were just starting to bud a few days before I made this image and I was hoping, as I have for the past few years, that I would be able to find an image that would convey the beginning of green-up in the northwoods. The tree is a Mountain Maple, also sometimes referred to as Moose Maple. I found this composition while spending the morning watching a Ruffed Grouse perform his spring drumming ritual. In between drumming sessions the Grouse had walked off into the woods and while waiting for him to return I was looking around at the surroundings for possible images when I spotted this new little leaf poking out from the notch in the Maple. I trained my 100-400mm lens on the leaf and made this image.

Wading Moose

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These images were taken on the Pigeon River in northeast Minnesota. The Pigeon River forms the border between northeast Minnesota and Ontario, Canada. I work at a state park that is right on the river, and during my shift at work I noticed there was this moose hanging around most of the afternoon on the river. After work that evening I brought my kayak out on the river and was able to get fairly close to this moose for several shots. This moose was actually suffering quite badly from brain worm, and as a result more often than not the moose was swimming in circles out in the middle of the river. Every once in a while she would get out on shore and walk around a little, but always she returned to the river and whenever she did she would end up swimming in circles. I notified the local wildlife biologist and told him I would check again in the morning to see if she was still around. The next morning before work I again brought my kayak out on the river but after searching upstream and down she was nowhere to be found, and hasn't been seen since. These images were shot from my kayak from about 40 feet away using my Canon EF 100-400mm lens.

Bluegrass and Partridge Falls abstract

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A couple of interesting things I photographed today... the image above was made along the banks of "Little Lake" in the village of Grand Portage. These grasses along the edge of the lake were backed by some incredibly calm and very blue water. I couldn't resist making a shot! I call this image "Bluegrass".

The image below was made at Partridge Falls on the Pigeon River. I've photographed Partridge Falls many, many times and was looking to do something a little different this time around. This image is a shot of the middle of the waterfall, and is a 1/15 second exposure during which I also panned the camera a short distance. The resulting image is not something that is normally seen when viewing a waterfall with your naked eye.

Owachomo Bridge, Newspaper Rock, Goosenecks State Park

Staying in Blanding, Utah tonight. After a day filled with sunshine, spotty rain, occasional snow showers, and some pretty good dust storms (not to mention some REALLY cool clouds throughout the day), I caught a nice sunset over Owachomo Bridge at Natural Bridges National Monument. Was hoping to photograph some stars over the same bridge, but it was too cloudy.



Some other highlights from today: Stopped by Newspaper Rock in Canyonlands National Park, an amazing rock which has probably the highest concentration of petroglyphs of any single rock in the Southwest. I also drove through some intense rain today, followed by some amazing skies as the storm broke up. As I drove North from Monument Valley I took a quick side trip to Goosenecks State Park to photograph the sky above the bends in the San Juan River.