Today was the first “big” day we have had so far this season. Granted, I wouldn’t really consider 56 birds a huge day. But, after two weeks of no counts, 0 bird days, and days where I am freezing my tush off in the cold only to see a few birds make their way through, I can say that I got pretty excited.
The weather was finally good enough for all the backlogged birds from the last few storms to make their way north. The day started off slow, as it always does. I had a golden eagle around 10:30, which is the earliest bird that I have had so far. Little did I know that about an hour after that, the floodgates would open. The majority of the birds passed by within an hour and a half, right in the middle of the day. One after the other, birds would pop up from the trees in front of me. After 15 golden eagles, 3 rough legged hawks (the very first ones I’ve ever seen!) and 20 red shouldered hawks, I was having the time of my life.
I cannot explain how happy I am that I chose today as the day to bring my camera to the fort. I can’t say that I got many great pictures (I only have a 300mm zoom lens, and that means absolutely nothing when the birds are so far away), but I still had some fun using my rusty camera skills on these birds. In photography, you need to take hundreds of bad photos to get a few great ones. And yes, now I have a ton of dark and blurry photos of birds, but I also have a few fantastic photos of an immature red shoulder that decided to fly just over my head. I will now be using those photos to show people that I’m a good photographer, even if it was absolute chance that I got them in the first place.
Days like today remind me of how much I love my job. I got to spend all day in the beautiful weather, watching birds gracefully flying though the sky, all while getting paid to be there.
