It has been seventeen days since we discovered the dead deer buck basically outside our morning room window. My entire career I’ve wanted to stake out a carcass to see the process of it disappearing myself. It has been fascinating to see all the life nurished from this death. At this point, Jake says I should stop putting out bird seed and just bring in carcasses to The Ranch. The amount of activity, life that carcass has brought in has been fascinating to say the least. It has been so cool, Sharon who was not thrilled to have death right outside our window spends as much time as me watching the going ons (she stays inside to watch). The ermine is the really hard one to watch, it darts in so fast, grabs a bite and darts back out faster than I can call out, ermine! Well, I wrote about the temporary hide I had set up on the carcass and my photographing the Black-billed Magpies a week back. Well since then … 

a lone coyote has been making frequent visits to the carcass to feed. My looking at it, it didn’t seem to have any real pickings left, I was so wrong! I watched the coyote through night vision a few nights as it tugged and pulled carrying off seemingly big chunks of meat. The next morning the magpies would show up to the more opened up carcass to feed as did the Golden Eagle! We’d see the Golden Eagle on the carcass from our office. I first shot through the morning room window just to break the jinx but the images weren’t usable. Then I started to try to sneak out to get a shot. No matter the exit I would take, how long I would take to get in view, day after day the magpies would warn the eagle and poof … gone! As luck would have it, the eagle was in the tree you see here when Sharon went out with Maggie one time. Neither Sharon or Maggie saw it until Maggie went between the eagle and the carcass and the eagle dove on Maggie. Well this morning, I saw the eagle on the carcass and again, I tried to get out to photograph it. It took off but it didn’t go in the usual direction nor with the normal urgency. I put on my jacket and climbed into the permanent hide I have setup just hoping it would return. Within a few minutes the eagle came back! Two hours later with the fun meter pegging 3800, its crop was full and off it went. I was about forty yards away from it, shot with the Z2x the entire time. While the view in the tree and on the carcass had some vegetation blocking full view, I’m very happy and tickle pink to be photographing a Golden Eagle right out my door. The amazing thing, it returned three hours later and fed more! Wow!! I’m so glad I stuck with it, day 17 – Jackpot!

We have Black-capped Chickadees here at the homestead. At first, just one and now, a flock of about 20+. I keep looking for them in the morning (no luck so far) as they all pile out of a single cavity where they spend the night huddled together for warmth. They are little puff balls early in the morning, all fluffed out to stay warm. The shot I have in my mind (which I don’t have yet) is one of these puff balls perched on a single limb covered in hoarfrost. They love this one particular tree so I stand out on the deck prefocused on that one branch waiting. As you can see in the photos below, it’s a pretty visually busy tree. It’s great practice as I move the Z600f4 TC from spot to spot as they land, shooting and then going back to my ideal perch, focusing and waiting. I love it. But the clock is always ticking.

I’m working at the MFD of the Z600f4 TC so I’m close to the action. It’s like a tennis match as I watch the flock move in and out feeding. Last week I saw a flash of color I’d not seen before. When it stopped for a moment (chickadees don’t hold still) I saw it was a Chestnut-backed Chickadee, a new bird for the homestead. Then today I saw a white eyebrow and knew that wasn’t normal here and saw it was a Mountain Chickadee. The Chestnut-backed, we are at its southern most range in MT. And the Mountain, this is low in elevation for it. I was excited to see them both with our Black-caps and the challenge of photographing them offers. But my original challenge remains, fluff ball on hoarfrost. I’ll be out tomorrow again if it forms with the little guys until the sun appears trying to get the shot in the smallest of windows!

 We returned from shooting in AZ for a week to 5-6 inches of snow on the ground. It was dark when we pulled in. The next morning I filled the bird feeders and did some other home chores before picking up Maggie at The Palace not noticing anything out of sorts. Around 10:00 we were back with Maggie and Sharon and her were out in what we call the Back 9. I was in the office dealing with stuff when Sharon burst in very excitedly saying, “There’s a dead buck in the yard!!!” (Not a good thing for her to find, she’s attached to all our deer). Now partially uncovered in the melting snow, I went out to inspect it. There were a ton of “dog” tracks around the carcass which had died about ten feet from where it now laid. We had a deer killed our first year at The Ranch up in the raven that brought in Bald Eagles and it is not uncommon where we are in the Sapphires as one of our neighbors said, “Your turn.” This buck though, 3 tines on one side, 4 on the other was literally easily in sight of our morning room, we could see it from the breakfast table! Nearly totally consumed, its death had happened within the last couple of days prior to our coming home with the Coyotes present the night we got back. All of this brought up the big question, what to do with it?

With temps hovering around the 20s, there is no smell or flies which if summer would be a major issue. There are a number of ways to dispose of carcasses here in MT. But one of the things I’ve always wanted to do was stake out a carcass and witness the process of it disappearing. I’ve been able to do it twice for just a day in Yellowstone but that is not long term, and it was not up close and personal. So me being me, and to absolutely no surprise to any of my neighbors, I put up a hide, stepped inside, and spent over a week (and still at it) watching the process unfold. (Photo of view from inside the hide below.) What unfolded and who showed up I was not prepared for!

I was so excited by the prospects, that my mind went to mush. I have a permanent hide set up already and moving it wasn’t an option. It had my only hide chair. I needed a solution fast but it took Sharon to come up with it. “What about the kit fox hide” she said. I totally forgot about it and my kit fox chair and within a few minutes, I was in business. Keeping in mind the MFD of the Z600f4 TC I set up the hide so I had front lighting around the noon time when I thought I would be shooting. With warm shoes, jacket, and gloves (so white hands can’t be seen looking into the window) I got in the hide, zipped the door, and waited.

The Black-billed Magpies were back on the carcass fifteen or so minutes after I was tucked in. The Coyotes had cleaned out the chest cavity pretty thoroughly. The Short-tailed Weasel, known as an Ermine in the winter had been coming and going so now it was time for the Magpies to go to work. I had been in the blind for about an hour when I heard a sound to my right, I looked in time to see a Golden Eagle on a glide path going right between the hide and the carcass and looking right at me, eye to eye, as it glided by! A Golden Eagle (new bird for The Ranch)! How it found the carcass is still a mystery but it wasn’t its first no last time to the carcass. I’d spend a couple of hours in the hide per session and by the end of the first day, had gotten some nice images but not the one I really wanted.

By the next day, all the snow had melted and the activity had slowed down a bit. Carcass was getting pretty bare. Again, I was in the hide for an hour and here flew past the Golden Eagle again. The next day, it had snowed a little bit which brought some of the images I had envisioned. That one image, the one I had seen from my office window of the Magpies perched on the antler, never appeared in the viewfinder. The second image I wanted was a Magpie perched on the top of the rib cage and the rib cage was not all bloody. I did get that shot. A week into this adventure the Coyotes had come back during the night and tugged on what I thought was a rather clean carcass. They exposed a shoulder where some meat remained. Maggie and I checked it out the next morning and I pulled the head around for the next session in the blind. I was in the office about an hour later when I saw the Golden Eagle back, on the carcass eating! Argh! It just goes to show to be on your toes when death comes knocking!

Yeah, it’s just a Mallard Duck, a species you can find basically at every pond in North America. But when you can make the common, uncommon, then you turn heads and you can tell your visual story. In this sitution, it was the background that caught my attention and what drove the photograph. The reflection of sunrise, grass reeds on the left and blue sky on the right in the water as it swirled had me mezmorized as I looked at it through the viewfinder. It was then I scambled to put a subject on that stage and the closest bird was … a Mallard. Sure, I would have loved a Wood Duck but there were none and it was going to be a cool shot, of a Mallard. To bring out the tones in the water I overexposed +1/3. A side benefit of this was it brought up the colors in the drakes head. A downside was it slowed down my shutter speed a tad. To make up for that I went from f/11 to f/8 and while I would have liked more of the flank in focus, I wanted the photo. I just love the feel of that water! In the end, I am very pleased with the image it all works cause the background drove the shot!

Telling a story, as photographers are most potent tool is how we speak about the light. This is a Say’s Pheobe, a real common bird that often doesn’t feel the love from photographers. Common subjects often suffer from this. I was taught from the very first that there was money in the common is you spoke about it in an uncommon way (and that was such great advice, thanks Gary!) In this case, the Say’s Phoebe was on a perch in kinda bright light. As you can see, part of its body though was in shade from another part of the tree. By simply dialing in -07 exp comp, the overal brightness was brought down with what appears to be a spot light on the head. Now the common is uncommon. It’s pretty simple to accomplish, just gotta think about telling the story. The best part though is when talking about the Say’s Phoebe I get to use an old birder’s joke. Say what?