My Favorite 21 Celery Bog Photos From 2021

This was an interesting year at the Celery Bog. It started off with me seeing a lot of birds that I had never seen before. Then a great horned owl came and had two owlets and everyone lost their minds. Watching photographers argue is not my idea of fun so I started to find other places to bird. I still like what I was able to make while I was out there this year. Here are my favorite photos from this past year at the bog.

21. The countdown starts off with a beautiful bluebird in some beautiful light. I really lucked out with the background and the perch here. This photo probably should be further on down the page.

20. This was the year that the great horned owl returned to the Celery Bog. The nest had people from all over coming to see it, and the locals battling over who could photograph it.

19. I never have blue jays come close to me. This one though had a treat that it wanted to eat and it did so right above me. I actually had to dip my knees a little to get the bird within the minimum focusing distance of my lens.

18. Standing in the same spot as the photo above this one I made this photo of a warbling vireo. I have never been this close to one before so this was a cool experience.

17. The greater and lesser yellowlegs only show up for a short time at the bog, but it is a fun time getting low and making images of them as they search the wading areas of the bog for food.

16. This is the best time of the year. You have birds showing back up after a winter away, and the buds just starting to pop out on everything. After a long winter without as much to photograph this is always a great time to start to feel good again about photography.

15. As I was looking through the images for this countdown I kept telling myself that I would not have made this photo in the past. The past couple of years I have tried to make more photos that show the habitat as well as the bird perched on something. You can make tight photos all day long, but these wider images help tell the story of where you were. I need to do even more of this.

14. Nesting time is always a fun time to make photos. When you know where the nest is you can place yourself in a position to make photos of the birds bringing the materials back to the nest.

13. This photo is not one that I would have made a few years ago. There were two egrets across the bog near the viewing platform. In the past I would have tried to get down there to photograph them in the water. A couple of years of experience though has taught me that the two photographers on the platform near them would try and get too close, and when the birds flushed they would fly right in front of me. That is exactly what happened, and it allowed me to make this photo of the egret up against the beautiful blue sky.

12. As we move on in this countdown you will see couple more green heron photos. This is the year where they showed up to the bog, and they were not shy. I had some amazing encounters with a bird that in previous years I was only able to see from a distance.

11. A yellow warbler against a blue sky will always be a fun photo to make. This year I did not make as many warbler photos as I have in years past. I still feel that I made a couple of good ones though.

10. By far my favorite warbler is the palm warbler. The colors in the spring look so good after a long winter of dullness. Here one flew right up to me and allowed me to make this portrait of it.

9. I still have yet to make a close portrait of a belted kingfisher. Here is the closest that I have ever gotten, and it has some heavy cropping done to it. This year I need to just find a spot and sit there until one of these things comes up to me.

8. This green heron could care less about me as it waited for just the right fish to come by. When the fish did come by this heron did not miss. This was a big meal for this small bird, but once it had it down its throat it immediately began looking for another course. It is amazing how much these birds can eat.

7. This was the last time that I saw this double crested cormorant at the bog. It had somehow miraculously survived the previous winter after its broken wing prevented it from leaving. I was sitting on a log near the waters edge watching this bird swim and preen near the only open water left at the bog. It eventually froze over, and the cormorant was not seen again. This little bird was something else though defying odds for a long time.

6. These are fun photos to make as the frogs surface. They blend in so well that it makes for a fun time trying to come up with ways to show how well they do. This was my favorite of those photos from the year.

5. While sitting by the waters edge this muskrat swam right up to me and started feeding near my feet. I actually had to move further down the log that I was on so that I had enough room to make a photo of this one eating. It was pretty cool to see, and very trusting of this muskrat.

4. This is one of the baby owls that had the bog up in arms this year. A section of the bog was taped off so that people could not get close to it. Of course the owl doesn’t know that so we found it outside of the taped area hanging out.

3. As I said above this was the year of the green herons at the bog. They were there in numbers, and they were not shy. This one flew right in front of me and just hung out for a while. I had to move to make sure that no grasses were in the frame, and this guy let me do it. The green top on the water of the bog made for a really cool background here.

2. Some days you just get lucky. While I was talking to another photographer this heron flew right in and landed near where I was standing. After a couple of minutes it grabbed a nice large breakfast. At the rate that the bog was fished this year by various species I am shocked that anything lasts to be this big there.

1. This is number one for a couple of reasons. The first is that it is of Ruby the resident screech owl at the bog. The second is because of the time that I spent trying to make this photo. I had plenty of Ruby photos with her eyes closed. Here the sun had been down for ten minutes or so, and I was holding my monopod up against my body to stabilize it. Ruby was very interested in a dog on the trail so she opened her eyes to get a look at it. After many tries I finally had a photo of Ruby that I really liked. Next year I will have to spend some time trying to top this one.

There are my favorite photos from this past year at the Celery Bog. As we start this new year I have some posts coming that will highlight some of my favorite photos from 2021. The next few days will be some of my favorite sports photos, and then we will start to move on to other things.