Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Yellow-headed Blackbird- A Lifer!

It took plenty of years to finally find this beauty! An extremely rare sighting in Illinois, I recieved word of a few about 60 miles away. I chose a good day, set out early and was rewarded, but not without a few hiccups/complaints! The directions were simple enough, but the vagueness in terrain became clear pretty quickly. I knew there wasn't a parking lot for this "state owned" property as of yet, so I was advised to park in the neighborhood close by. I did that, walked across the highway, to a sign stating the preserves name, but was questioning the "authorized vehicles only" part of it. I was assured that the sign was there to keep out the kids, so I began my journey. I was looking at a seldom used gravel road, followed by a footpath along a cornfield, to an open area, looking north for a cattail marsh as the directions say...Sounds easy! A half-mile walk! O.K...Let's just stop the drama here and just chalk one up to another place I care not to revisit. The immediate cattail area was awesome though! The YHBB sighting was awesome! He was very photogenic, and had I had a pair of rubber wading boots, he would have obliged me in some really nice close-ups!

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6 comments:

Ruth's Photo Blog said...

Congrats on this Lifer. You did get great pictures.Now,if you want to see more of these birds,while parking the car on the road and walking along the road,let me know.I know a good place and it always yields plenty of Yellow-heads.OK,you would need to come to Manitoba. :)
Blessings,Ruth

Montanagirl said...

YHBB's are really beautiful. We see them here and there in our area. Those white wing patches, yellow head and jet black body make for a very striking bird. Nice shots!

Craig Glenn said...

Wow, that is really cool, great shots and congrats on the lifer!

Craig Glenn

Anonymous said...

That is a pretty bird with the darkest yellow I have seen in awhile.

Brad Myers said...

Who needs wading boots, pull up the pant legs and get the shoes muddy, LOL. Beautiful photos, I would say it was worth the trip.

I have never photographed minks so like you I would take what I could get. I would bet that now that you know there location you will spend enough time to get awesome photos.

Willard said...

Congratulations on getting this rare shot and also the mink in your more recent post. They are both species that I do not have good photos of, although I did see the mink that Coy photographed and posted some time ago, but there was grass in my line of vision and I didn't get anything.