A Great Morning in Plymouth

Red-shouldered Hawk

Monday morning I spent in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and had a very productive morning.  We started out at Jenney Pond.  First, we were looking for the wood duck which we could not find.  Utilizing crack corn we were able to bring most of the mallards in and I was able to get some flight shots, utilizing my 70-200 mm lens with it 2X converter.  Suddenly all of ducks took off and flew.  Why?  Looking up, we saw a hawk flying overhead, which then landed in a nearby tree.  We slowly approached the hawk, and utilizing my 500 mm lens with a 1.4 converter on it, we were able to get many pictures of the red-shouldered hawk.  After the hawk flew off, a bread-breasted merganser swam by in the river and I was able to capture it with my camera.

Next, we traveled down to two Plymouth Harbor, to the parking lot behind The East Side Grille, where we found in the small area of open water, common eiders, feeding.  The eiders were catching clams and crabs.  Suddenly, herring gulls decided that they wanted the choice morsels that the eiders were catching and started attacking the eiders.  Most of the time, the eiders dove, to get away and was able to eat the prey.  One time however, the gull caused the eider to drop the food under the water, with the gull dove and got the clam and so it got to enjoy the food.

On the bridge leading to the jetty there was a third year great black-backed gull.

The last stop was Cordage Park, where the main attraction was mallards.  And again, utilizing crack corn were able to get a number of flight pictures.

I took the pictures from the day and turned it into a video slideshow which can be seen at: https://www.dropbox.com/s/6mln38k1pop7g8p/ProShow%20Slideshow.avi?dl=0

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A Morning in Plymouth, Massachusetts

Drake Mallard After Bathing

The weather has been still cold, but today the weather was into the low 30s.  I traveled out to Plymouth and went initially to Cordage Park, because the other day, my son was out there and told me that there was in the pond, an area of open water with decent birds.  There was a small area of open water filled with mallards and mainly ring-billed gulls along with some hen bufflehead's, drake and hen ring-necked ducks, along with a pair of mute swans.

Ring-billed Gull Coming in for Landing

Ring-billed Gull Various Years

Ring-billed Gull

Ring-billed Gull Bathing

"two guys and a gal" Ringed-Necked Ducks

Drake ringed-Necked Duck With Two Hen Bufflehead

I needed to step into the snow up to almost my knees to get close to the fence so I could photograph the birds.  When the mallards first saw you approaching the fence, the mallards all swam toward you expecting to be fed.

Mallards looking for food

After finishing photographing the avian life at Cordage Park, I then drove down and to the big parking lot at Plymouth Harbor.  All this winter, every time I've been traveling down to this area.  I have been looking for the Iceland gull, which returns every year.  I have been shut out until today when I was able to capture the Iceland gull in flight.

Iceland Gull in Flight

The tide was way up and if the harbor wasn't frozen and if there was waves, we would've been flooded.  The reason for this is that today is a new Moon, plus the new Moon is a super-moon leading to astronomically high tides.

Because of all the snow we had, when I went to Jenny Pond.  It was hard getting close to where it was easy to photograph the ducks in the pond because of the height of the drips which were up to my waist.  Hopefully, as they start clearing the snow way will be the easier to photograph the ducks in the open area of Jenney Pond.

Using the coupon code mborn you will receive a 15% discount on any or all of the Topaz plug-ins.



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