The Day Before Vacation

Well I am back from vacation. It has been hard to get back to my normal life after spending 9 days shooting pictures for 10to 14 hours a day. I just began to make a small dent in going through the trip pics yesterday. With 120gb worth of pics it may take a while. I hope that you guys don't get sick of Yellowstone pics too quickly. I spent most of the day yesterday doing stuff around the house, like washing cloths, giving Misty kitten some much needed attention and then Michelle and I took in the new Narnia flick.

I do have one last group of photos that I shot the evening before we left on vacation. It was a Wednesday and it was supposed to be cloudy that day, since my new lens was already packed I brought my old lens with me to work and The Raptor Center and when it turned out to be sunny I could not help but stop off at Fort Snelling State Park on my way home.
I was really disappointed not to have my new lens, I have become spoiled very quickly, with so many warblers around. The AF with my old 100-400mm lens does not pick up small birds very well so I am often forced to use manual focus which does not work very well with small darting birds like warblers. So the pictures did not come out as well as they would have if I had brought the new lens. I followed this black and white warbler from tree to tree but was only able to get a few marginal pictures like the one above. I love how the black and white warblers act a lot like nuthatches, although I have not seen them walking down the tree like nuthatches like to do.
This magnolia warbler did not come out as well as I would have liked either.
The American redstart was a little more cooperative and gave me enough time to get a good focus.
Besides warblers there was also a few Baltimore orioles.
Although I am not sure who was watching who?

The fun part of shooting that night was the newly hatched goslings
I spotted 3 different pairs of Canadian geese with goslings. each had a clutch of 2 to 4.
When photographing something as cute as young goslings I guess it does not matter what type of lens that you use.
Too bad they have to grow up. The goslings are cute but adult geese can become a nuisance.
One of the adults decided that it did not want me taking any more photos of the babies and it started to hiss at me. It is all bluff and bluster, since there is not much that a goose can do to hurt a person, but I did not want to stress them so I headed home to pack. I guess that the goose did not want its little goslings to be stars but it was already too late. Anything that cute will always draw attention.