It's always fun going out to take photos, but it's more fun when you plan a small trip. Last Monday Chad and I went out to Lake Waconia on a boat to look for migrating ducks.
We ended up finding Loons, Canvas Backs, Coots, Geese, Gulls, Mallards and Ring-necked ducks. We first ran into the loons. They were somewhat easy to get close too in comparison to everything else we saw. We would wait for the loons to dive down then we would use the trolling motor to zoom in a little closer.
Once we got what we felt was enough loon photos we moved on to a large bay that had hundreds of Coots in. Mixed in with the Coots is where we found the Ring-necked ducks and Canvas-backs. While sitting low in the boat and using the trolling motor we attempted to get in close. Since the coots where extremely skiddish which made everything else in the bay skiddish too.
Once we flushed everything away we headed to the north end of the lake where there is a man-made rock point (see insurance blog post!) where there are always gulls hanging out. Most of the gulls flew away as soon as we got near, but some hung around for us to make a couple of photos.
As you can see, avian photography is difficult to say the least. You are never guaranteed anything when you go out, but that is half of the fun. When you do come home with a photo that you love it makes all of the near misses worth the while.
