Weekend getaway from Denver spent with my mom. All the photos from the trip were taken inside of Rocky Mountain National Park, definitely one of the coolest places in Colorado for wildlife and nature photography in my opinion.
I don’t get out much to shoot birds as much as I’d like too, due to photographing dogs as a new side project, so I was excited to get this opportunity to get some good bird photos.
Got a late start Day 1 getting into the park at about 7am (sunrise was 5:30), and was psyched that I could here Hummingbirds everywhere I went. Out in the wild without a bird feeder these suckers can be tough to get a good picture of. Luckily out of 50 shutter actuation’s or so I was able to get a good one of this Broad-tailed Hummingbird as he was feeding.
On Bear Creek Trail there were quite a few Pygmy Nuthatches very active throughout the whole trail.
It’s almost always a sure bet to run into some Stellar’s Jays in RMNP, or anywhere in the mountains of Colorado for that matter.
Saw a couple of Mountain Cottontail rabbits, this one didn’t mind being photographed while chomping down a bunch of grass for breakfast.
Day 1 was an overall pretty good day. No rare birds photographed but did see some Lincoln Sparrows which is something I don’t get to see everyday.
Day 2 I got a pretty good start out the door of the hotel by 4:30am and in the park at the Sprague Lake trailhead at about 4:50am…..ready for the long 1 minute hike from the parking lot over the bridge and to the lake. All set.
For early in the morning it was just a tad windy which robbed me of a chance to get a nice smooth crisp reflection on the lakes water, oh well maybe next trip. This is one of my favorite shots of the sunrise on Sprague Lake that turned out okay. 6 photos merged together taken with my tripod nikon d610 and nikkor 50mm f1.8. Notice the small herd of Elk with young to the right, they were blocking my path to get a different angle of the sunrise photo, had to walk around the entire lake as they were not moving and I’m not getting close to Elk when young are present.
At about 5:45am the sun was starting to illuminate the lake and the birds were going crazy active, as they are known to do at this time. Grabbed my Nikkor 300mmf/4 with x1.4 teleconverter. If your going for good bird photographs, Sprague Lake early in the morning is my favorite spot for bird photography. Pine Siskins were everywhere, flocks of them.
Right when I was packing up and in the parking lot, a flock of Wild Turkeys were roaming around in the grass, walking all up in the parking lot and stuff. Got several good shots in some pretty awesome lighting, they also didn’t seem to be photographed, even by the people walking right up to them with their cellphone trying to take a picture.
