Yesterday morning I explored a relatively new location, the Marais des Cygnes NWR in east-central Kansas. This place is about a half hour from my home in Missouri and is mostly known for the bird inventory during the spring and fall migrations. Being summer, I wasn’t sure what would be there, but thought I’d give it a try. I found most of the pools were either dried up or covered by weeds. But I did find a nice spot at the edge of some woods where the bird activity was quite good. One of my favorite finds was the Yellow-billed Cuckoo (Coccyzus americanus):
This secretive bird was very accepting of me and gave me lots of great photo opportunities, which I greatly appreciated! It is often called the “rain crow” and stays in the dense canopy of trees, feeding on hairy caterpillars. In the last image, you can see his snack he just pulled from the backside of a leaf.
Photographic Equipment Used:
- Canon 7D body
- Canon EF500mm, f/4 lens, with Canon 1.4x TC (resulting in 700mm total focal length)
- Bogen 3221 tripod with Wemberly gimball head (version 1)
- ISO 250
- Aperture f/5.6
- Shutter 1/200 sec. to 1/500 sec.