Crazy Horns Part 1

I spent the better part of last Sunday walking about 120 acres starting to look for deer sheds.  Now you might be wondering... what is a deer shed.  No it is not a place they store their tools or some place they build to sleep at night (actually had someone ask me that once).  It is the antlers of the deer that fall off, or shed, each year before they grow their new ones.  I had recently shared the photos of two nice bucks I had seen a few times and was hoping to find one of their sheds in particular.

One of the bucks we have nicknamed crazy horns.  You can see his photo again below.

Crazy horns has his right side antler with all the horns or points broken off and the left side is a huge spike.  In person it looks crazy to say the least.  Well after searching all day Sunday we finally found our first shed of the season.  We found the right side of Crazy Horns.  You can see below the picture taken with my iPhone of where it was when we found it.

We'll be out this weekend looking for more sheds.  The odds are slim we find the other side of Crazy Horns but we'll try our best.

The Boys

Here are two bucks that have been hanging out together this winter. I've seen flashes of them several times but they came in just before dark last night. I had to shoot 12800 ISO so a little grainy even after downsizing but I still thought they make nice shots. One is obviously a pretty large and dominant buck and the other has the longest spike on one side I've ever seen. Would love to find these sheds after they drop in the next few weeks.

Fall Colors on Lake Creek

We just missed the peak colors up north in Rhinelander this year but here is a shot of one my favorite islands on the lake.  You can see the color in the tamaracks and the clouds cooperated nicely today as well.

Mallard Duck

Just a simple photo of a duck I took today.  Was out on the river and just shooting some general pics. Not a ton of wildlife was close but the ducks almost always oblige.

Happy 4th of July

Here's another photo of the Bald Eagle eating a northern pike on top of a stump pile / muskrat house. Seemed like a fitting photo for today. Happy 4th of July!

Great Blue Heron

This Great Blue Heron was hanging out in the wild rice and let me get fairly close for a couple of photos. After a couple of shots we continued down the river. These are fun birds to photograph and are fairly abundant in the Wisconsin River flowage. More Heron and Eagle photos coming in the next few days.

Fish Lunch

Got pretty close to this eagle today. He was eating a good size northern on top of a muskrat house. I used my 100-400 lens and took a bunch of snaps for about five minutes before leaving him be with this lunch.

Long and Winding Road

We were traveling down this section of road and I just had to turn around and go back and get a picture.  Took awhile for traffic to clear but it turned out well.  Hope you enjoy.

Happy Holidays

It's been awhile since I've added anything to this blog.  I've been busy and have been doing some shooting but haven't had the time to do much editing and uploading.  Hopefully with winter here I will find some time to share some of the photos.

We just had some fresh snow last night and it provided some great photo ops.  I'll share more later but this one is one of my favorites.  Happy Holidays to all.

A couple more from the Upper Dells

Here are a couple of more photos from the Upper Dells. The first is a beautiful cliff edge. The second is a picture from Witches Gulch. Simply amazing place.

Upper Dells

Took a tour of the Upper Dells on the Wisconsin River in the Wisconsin Dells.  While I have been to the Dells many times I have never taken this trip.  I was simply amazed by the scenery on this trip.  I'll be posting some more photos in the near future of this trip but wanted to share two quick ones with you.  The first is the Palisades near the beginning of the Dells and the second is Stand Rock which my Great Grandfather jumped as a child when he grew up here.  Today we got to see a trained German Shepard make the jump.

Door County

Door County Wisconsin is one of the hidden gems of the Midwest and offers a ton of opportunities for photographers.  I spent some time there recently to photograph the cherry blossoms and some other local attractions.  If you haven't had the chance to visit Door County I would highly recommend it.  Here are just a few of my photographs from the trip.  Un-watermarked high quality versions of all are for sale on my website Keith Bell Photography