December Studio

It's December already - how'd that happen?!

The studio still looks as it did last week after the floor went in, except now we've got a couple inches of sleet on the ground...and now it's raining.

We foresaw the front coming in a couple days ago and moved some materials over into the studio building from the crib. While doing the loading/unloading process we noticed a couple adult Bald Eagles down by Waterman Creek...they may have been watching us out of amusement or boredom...or giving us little mind whatsoever.

We do get Bald Eagles staying in the valley each year during the winter. The studio entrance/front looks over the valley, creek, and Heron rookery, so its a great place to watch the larger "goings on" out front.

The eagle pictured above was nick named "Norm" by the neighbor. It was a bird that sat in a particular tree for weeks on end along the creek. I was working nights about 55 miles away at the time and one day on the way to work (around 3:30pm) I stopped and took some photos of "Norm" from the pickup truck. I didn't want to press the bird too much and cause any stress...it was in the single digits that day. So I kept inside the truck and used it as my "blind" to photograph from. This bird had become conditioned to accept local "traffic" and didn't become too alarmed when I stopped. If I had left the vehicle, it very likely would have flushed from it's perch.

The bird was probably 150 feet from the pickup and the camera was a D1X Nikon with a 400mm Sigma lens with a Nikon 1.4 converter. The image is cropped about 50%.

Back to the studio...the cats have been moved back into the building...they were in the Potting shed since summer. With the weather turning nasty and cold, we felt best that they be returned to old surroundings. The cats are our son's; they took up residence here on the farm after the kids moved to Sioux Falls and could not keep them in their rental property. Maja and Morpheus are still busy exploring new surroundings a day later.