My House of Worship

 I'm not a religious person but I do consider myself a spiritual person, so in that vein this past Sunday I spent some quality time in my house of worship. I went out to one of the local areas where it is fairly common to see Marsh Hawks aka Northern Harriers.  They are a unique bird of prey that hunts on the wing for small rodents and birds.  They nest on the ground and hunt by flying low over the ground.  Their heads are disc shaped  to funnel sound to their ears.  Watching them work the fields over and over, probing the ground for an easy meal mesmerizes me and keeps me enthralled.   Over the coarse of the two hours I was privileged to witness their activities I took hundreds of photos.  As is the case of any photographer I only ended up with a few that I liked.  Such is the nature of bird photography especially without the big dollar lenses that the pros use.

 

A little carp from this past summer

Video taken from this past summers carp outing.  So much fun, very frustrating fishing at times but very rewarding.  Now as my friend Pat say we have to suffer through steelhead season until spring. 

A lil friend

Went for a walk last week during my son's music lesson and came upon this little guy. 

Montauk

I got a special invite a week ago to hit the famous waters surrounding Montauk.  Although I have a boat it is not up for the trip across Long Island Sound especially if it gets windy.  I tend to stay close to shore and in the more protected water.  After hearing all of the incredible stories of Montauk it was great to finally get to see it in person. That being said it is still fishing and nothing is guaranteed.  We got there mid morning due to fog and there must have been 200 boats ranging from skiff (only a few) to 40 foot cabin cruisers all plying the waters for fish.  We stayed outside a bit hunting for albies and didn't venture towards shore where more bass tend to be found.  The bait was spread out a great deal and we had to work hard for the albies that we found but between the 3 of us we must have hooked 20 albies.  I must admit that I got schooled by my friends who live on the coast and had the correct flies and I did not.  They did offer pity on me and gave me some of the magic flies after letting me flog the water from the bow of the boat for a while.  All in all it was a memorable day and one that I hope to repeat next year.

 

 albie,the inshore rocket ships

 Love the colors of albies

 "Hardcore" hooked up

 The famous point.  If you carefully you can see a guy up to his neck in-front of the guy on the rock.

 The Montauk lighthouse

Marsh Hawk

I grew up on a salt marsh in Massachusetts and always loved seeing Marsh Hawks aka Northern Harriers.  This past weekend I was on a walk with my family in some nearby woods when we spotted this Marsh Hawk hanging out.  It isn't often that one gets close enough to get good shots of these birds.  If the sun had been out I could have gotten better pics but am pleased with this one.

Post Yellowstone

In the craziness of getting back from YNP I somehow forgot to post a few pics from our visit to our friends in Bozeman.  We spent two wonderful days with a good friend and his wonderful family.  My bud and I did get out for one day of fishing which was a blast.  I hadn't fished out there for many many years and never during "Hopper time."  Here are some of the pictures from this outing. 

 A common sight in rural MT

 Did I say it was hopper time?

 small creek goodness

 greedy little fish

Oh Deer

The best shot from a little outing this past weekend.  Very happy with this shot given the poor lighting and some tweaking of my technique to get sharp photos with my telephoto lens. 

70-300 mm zoom
ISO 400
F 5.6
300mm
1/30 second