Another Great Evening

           I was not planning on following up with a post so quickly but I got some pictures that I had to share. I went hunting again for deer, but because I do not have a buck tag I was able to get some great pictures of deer I would have otherwise been looking at through a shotgun scope. I sat down beneath some brush with 2 hours of daylight left and was able to capture some awesome pictures. Enjoy!

A flock of geese at a wildlife preserve.

Time For an Update (Pictures)

If possible, click on each image to see the pictures on larger scale.

 I am keeping each picture smaller to save space!

Nature's beauty and destruction captured in the same frame.

Look very closely on this one. You should see four of them, Ghosts of the Grass.

Look closely at this one too and you might see a rainbow.
I need to do some research to determine what caused this. If you know leave a comment!

Time For an Update! (Text)

*Look at the above post for pictures referred to in this post*

        

       As my first semester of college came to a close I became a little preoccupied and was not able to add anything to this blog until now. I have had three outings since I last posted anything, each of them taking place in a very different location. The first is from a state park near Alexandria, Minnesota. Minnesota made it free to enter any of their parks on Black Friday and so I went out for a little hike and found myself lost in quite a beautiful scene. To start with I began walking through the woods on a series of trails. I had noticed that I had yet to see any animal sign so I went and looked at a depression where water collected to see if I could find anything. I quickly found deer tracks in the dried mud and while I was kneeling down to observe something (I cannot remember what I was looking at) I realized that leaves were breaking underfoot of something nearby. I whirled around and was surprised to see an older gentlemen running through the woods (not on the trail). I got up and jogged back towards the trail unaware of what was happening around me! I saw the man's figure escape behind a pile of fallen trees. I watched that area for something to reappear for several moments but when nothing did I began to proceed on my way. Just as I did, the man began running again from behind the pile of trees! He had been watching me I believe, this time I sprinted up towards the pile and I caught a glimpse of the man moving through the trees far away. I looked for any sort of sign or tracks that would have indicated the man's presence but could not find anything there. I watched in the direction he had gone and saw two figures walking on a trail quite a ways off, it was a man and a woman. Who knows what happened!

          I continued on and came across a horse trail that led away from my vehicle, there was only about an hour of daylight left but I decided to head that way anyway. The first thing I found was a dead deer, a spike buck or a one and a half year old. He had been dead for a while because the birds had ripped his back end open, torn fur from all over his body and his eye was missing. Moving on I saw a big bird flying towards me. A pileated woodpecker stopped to drill into a dozen or so trees offering me great photo opportunities. This bird is nearly the size of a crow. It flew off and I continued on once again. I started walking towards this perfectly golden field when I saw a flash of white, I instinctively knew it was the tail of a deer. I began jogging into the field in hopes of getting a picture but the deer were gone. I noticed the sun was reflecting off of the grass in the most brilliant shade of gold that painted the canvas that was this prairie I stood in. As I continued to take pictures I saw the deer off in the distance, 4 in total. I got a few pictures and headed back towards the car. 

       Part two sent me to the same county park that I was at for my last blog. I was headed else where but a deer hunt kept me from staying there. I was able to see a couple deer and I attempted to sneak up on a pair of rooster pheasants that were cackling the afternoon away. I was able to get within 20 yards of the birds before they flushed. As I mentioned in a previous post I was planning on getting a new camera, a DSLR, and I did! This outing was the first with the new camera.

I'm sitting at home now, back in Iowa writing this. My last final was yesterday and today I went out shotgun hunting for deer. Although I did not see any deer in the field I was able to get some shots with my camera as I hunkered down in the woods for an evening sit to escape the gusting winds and single digit wind-chills. The only animals of great interest that I saw today was a coyote as he was trotting away from me about 100 yards away and some geese. Normally I would not think much of a couple honkers but as I was walking back to my car right after sunset I heard these birds before I could see them off in the distance. Before I knew what was happening a gaggle of geese that seemed to stretch a half mile long flew across the sky directly above me. It was an incredible sight to see based on the sheer number that were in the sky. I spent today on the same farm that I began this whole blog at nearly a year ago now! It's where my passion for capturing moments of nature with a camera really came about. It's where I had my first successful solo turkey hunt and countless memories in His creation with my father over the last several years. It was really great to be able to get back to this farm after being in Minnesota since August. 

I understand that this is a lot of writing, for those of you who read this far down thank you! All of the pictures that are in post above correspond to one of these three outings.