Friday, October 31, 2008

Halloween Bike Ride

The weather today was amazing so I headed out late afternoon for a bike ride around the Grand River. I was keeping an eye out for Bald Eagles because this is the time of year they start traveling down the Grand again. I did not spot any eagles but I did come across a red tailed hawk. It seemed to not even notice me even though I was about 15 feet away. I was able to photograph the hawk for 15 minutes and then decided to head home after taking close to 100 photos of the bird. I was able to watching it spot, catch and eat 2 snakes and it was very interesting to observe. This one must have had enough encounters with people on the trail that it has learnt people are harmless, well most of us at least. Here are a couple of the photo's I took:

This is a snake that has wrapped around the beak.

7 comments:

  1. Nice photos, Dan. It's amazing what a person can see in nature, if they really look.....

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  2. I enlarged the snake pic. Way cool! We have hawks nest in our woods but I have yet to capture them with good photos. Even though I am in the yard a lot, they are shy of me. I have seen our hawk (red shoulder) with a big snake in its mouth while flying into the woods with it. The Saint and I got the binoculars and watched him munch down on his meal. His favorite bird from our feeders would be the dove. I find the feathers on the ground often. He keeps the dove population low in our yard....

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  3. Eagle? Hawk? Both great to find. I'll take the hawk over nothing any day. What a great day.

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  4. god photos, nice to see so many hawks making a comeback after DDT.

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  5. I really liked the snake shot!

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  6. eg - It is amazing the things around use, even a city bike ride is full of nature.

    skeeter - I bet it would like meaty doves.

    tina - It was a great day.

    rosemary - it is nice to see them rebounding.

    sandy - thanks

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  7. Very cool photos, Dan. It's crazy that we can see around us if we just take a moment to look and enjoy.

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