I’ve been leading photo tours to capture stunning images of Common Loons (Gavia immer) for over ten years now. Each time I take a group of photographers out it’s feels like a new and fun adventure. Each tour I fully expect to see some interesting behaviors of the loons along with many other species of birds and the birds never fail to amaze me in so many ways.

The Common Loon is the main target, but I often take time to capture images of other species of birds such as American White Pelican, Yellow-headed Blackbird, Marsh Wren and everyone’s favorite, Red-necked Grebe.

Each morning starts well before sunrise. The objective is to get on the water in my custom-built pontoon boat and get into position when the sun first peaks over the eastern horizon. I position the boat near a family of loons with the sun directly on the opposite side, then we wait. With the fires in Canada sending smoke in the upper atmosphere, each sunrise has been a fiery red color. This makes for some amazing settings to capture images of loon families in the morning sunrise. But these early mornings mean I am up at 4 am every morning and we are out late each evening. So, I am averaging 4 hours of sleep each night. This might explain why this article is a bit rambling in nature.

After thirty minutes of capturing images of the sunrise with the loons, I maneuver the boat around to have the sun at our backs and start to capture images in the traditional way. I slowly move the boat around the lake in search of other birds. Using my binoculars to scan the immediate area and trying to anticipate the birds that might be in the particular habitat. Now and then we get lucky and see a muskrat or otter but mostly we concentrate on capturing images of birds.

At this time of year, most birds are nesting and are busy tending to either building nests, incubating eggs or feeding young. Each species is on its own timeline. Some are just getting ready to start nesting while other birds such as the Common Loon have their chicks already. That is the thing about nature, each species has found its own way to accomplish the same thing, reproduction. While nesting is relatively similar, each species tweaks the process to fit the species particular needs.

Every now and then we are surprised by a new and interesting bird. I often spend extra time in or near cattail marshes. Nearly every time we visit these areas, I can hear a small and secretive bird. It is often buried deep in the cattails with no chance of seeing it. It gives a soft and regular call lasting only one or two seconds. Its call sounds like someone knocking on a wooden door. “knock, knock, knock, knock”. While it is not unusual to hear this bird, seeing them just about never happens. It is the Least Bittern (Lxobrychus exilis).

So recently, after telling everyone a bit about their natural history, and especially noting that we never see them due to their secretive nature, we had two of them jump out of the cattails and started flying around, right out in the open. Several of the participants were able to capture some images of the birds in flight and everyone got a real good look at these uncommon birds.

The Least Bittern is the smallest member of the heron family in North America and perhaps the third smallest heron in the world, standing only 11 inches tall. It only weights about 2 to 3.5 ounces, not pounds. This makes them one of the lightest of all the herons.

The Least Bittern spends most of its time walking around in the cattails. The problem is, the cattails are in water, so the bittern uses its long toes to grab the stalks of the cattails, often straddling the stems in the splits position. It does this to move about the cattail marsh, to hunt for food and to find a mate and make a nest.

After seeing the two birds flying around everyone was so happy. We had a brief celebration then started to motor out of the area. While reaching the outer edge of the marsh, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Perched at the base of some cattails, was a Least Bittern right out in the open. We were able to capture some of the best images I have of this bird, thus proving you never know what you will see when you go out into nature. Until next time…

Stan Tekiela is an author / naturalist and wildlife photographer who travels the U.S. to study and capture images of wildlife. He can be followed on www.instagram.com and www.facebook.com. He can be contacted via his website at www.naturesmart.com.

However, there are some species who don’t follow the early nesting playbook for reproduction. The American Goldfinch (Spinus tristis) is a great example of this alternate nesting behavior. Weeks after most young birds have left the nest and the adults are chasing after the young to feed them, the American Goldfinch is just starting to work on building a nest and laying eggs.

I was fortunate enough to recently find an American Goldfinch nest that was in a location to observe and capture a few images while not disturbing their natural nesting behavior safely and respectfully. Located along a driveway and down a small hill, the nest was slightly below eye-level when I parked my truck. This allowed me to stay inside my vehicle and use a very long lens to watch, learn and capture natural nesting behaviors.

It is not known why American Goldfinch nests so late in the season. It may be related to the ripening of thistle seed, which makes up a large portion of their diet. The extra food makes feeding themselves and their offspring much easier and perhaps leads to more babies leaving the nest. In addition to the abundant food, they also use the soft silky downy material attached to the thistle seed to line the inner cup of their nest. They also use silky material from Milkweed and Cattail. Again, an abundant nesting material makes it easier to construct the nest.

Male Goldfinch set up a territory and begin to make elaborate courtship flights while singing a loud clear song. His flight is often described as a roller coaster ride because his flight goes up and down in an undulating pattern. Closer to the ground he often flies in a zig-zag pattern from tree to tree to attract a female.

It is the female who constructs the nest often on the thin branches of a small tree or shrub. It takes her less than a week to fully construct the nest. Some males will bring construction material to the female, but she does all the work. She will lay four to six eggs over the next week before she sits down and starts to incubate.

Chicks hatch 12-14 days after incubation starts. The young are hatched naked, with their eyes still sealed shut and are completely helpless. The adult male collects food and brings it to the female who in turn feeds the newly hatched young. One of the things that makes these Goldfinch unusual is the fact they feed their young mostly seeds and very few insects. Most springtime baby birds are fed a high protein diet of insects.

There is very little nest parasitism by Brown-headed Cowbirds because it is believed the Goldfinch nests are too late in the year for the cowbirds and the survival rate of the cowbird offspring is very low in the Goldfinch nest because of the mostly seed diet.

The American Goldfinch is one of the strictest vegetarians in the bird world. Which is to say they don’t eat the number of insects like most smaller birds. They are considered granivorous birds, who only occasionally eat insects. They concentrate their food gathering efforts on a narrow variety of plants, and often these are considered weedy plants such as thistle, dandelion, ragweed, and other less desirable plants. They also consume fresh tree buds along with a wide variety of ripened fruit. Watching the American Goldfinch feeding at this time of year is fun. It often hangs upside down from seedheads while popping seed after seed out and consumes right on the spot.

Sitting in my truck with my lens poked out the driver window, I see the male flying to the nest where the female sits on the newly hatched young. He is singing his loud clear song as he approaches, and the female immediately starts to quiver her wings and open her mouth even before he arrives at the edge of the nest. When he does, the male feeds the female regurgitated slurry of seeds. He departs and in turn she feeds the young baby birds with the freshly delivered food. This is an amazing and very different strategy in bird reproduction. Until next time…

Stan Tekiela is an author / naturalist and wildlife photographer who travels the U.S. to study and capture images of wildlife. He can be followed at www.instagram.com, www.facebook.com. He can be contacted at his website www.naturesmart.com.