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Deceived by a Juvenile

Let me start with a huge cleansing breadth!  Hell, let’s all partake in a giant cleansing breadth.  Ready…set…go  breathe in breathe in a little more, just a bit more, fill every cubic millimeter of those lungs, hold it, hold it, just a bit more.. now let it all out in a big whhooooossssshhhhh.  Unless you took this relaxing moment a little too serious and passed out, you should be feeling relieved, refreshed, rejuvenated and rambunctious.  Not sure about the last feeling there, was on a role with the R’s.  channeling my inner high school Spanish class. I’m sure feeling a lot better now.  Three days ago I was 4 days from the end of the month and three posts away from my self-imposed quota.  Thanks to some elbow grease this post releases a whole bunch of pressure.

I know, I know, you don’t want to read about my problems, you want some of that special bird sauce.

Juvenile Red-Eyed Vireo shot at Bellevue State Park in Bellevue IA July 2017

This little specimen was shot while visiting Bellevue State Park in Iowa.  Back in July (this year), we were on our way back from a Minnesota bird and waterfall shooting trip and stopped by Bellevue’s lock to see what it had to offer.  If you are keeping up with my little off-ramp on the information highway, you may recall that this is the same place we spotted the Peregrine Falcon making the skies very dangerous for anything with wings (link here).  After shooting the Peregrine, we made our way up to the state park on the bluff overlooking the lock.  While standing there checking out the scene, a very intriguing song rang out from a nearby tree.  The hunt was on.

Juvenile Red-Eyed Vireo shot at Bellevue State Park in Bellevue IA July 2017

Hit the jump read more about this mystery bird.

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The Deadly Skies

Amazing how fast this month went.  Seems like days ago when I was relaxing by the pool with a smugness born out of knowing I had successfully made it to the standard post quota for another month.  Add in  a healthy dose of training runs, a local birding run, an out of state birding vacation and an agility dog show we find ourselves right back in the fire trying to closing it out.  The good news is I have plenty of fodder to choose from these days having done some overtime in the digital darkroom.  If you thought the last post was fresh, this set of pictures still has the chemicals dripping off them.

Peregrine Falcon spotted in Bellevue Iowa Locks July 14th, 2017

First off, a bit of an apology.  This set of pictures is not my best work.  Even with The Beast (200-400mm) I was barely able to reach the subject.  The fact it is good enough to even tell it is a bird is amazing in itself.  However, I was not going to leave without getting something to verify my new +.5 encounter.  Hopefully, you are in agreement that the shots that were obtained are sufficient enough to ID this deadly feathered predator as a Peregrine Falcon.  Technically this isn’t the first time a Peregrine has appeared on the blog so giving myself just a .5 instead of a whole 1.  While closing out a Yellowstone trip back in February of 2016 (link here), I added a single shot of a bird and asked for verification of whether it was a juvenile Peregrine.  My brother Ron did provide feedback confirming the juvenile.  Now I officially have the adult version producing the full +1 yeah!

Peregrine Falcon spotted in Bellevue Iowa Locks July 14th, 2017

Hit the jump to read a bit more about this deadly bird

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