Wendy is a friend of mine from work. One day, a few years back, I ended up working side-by-side with her during a 12-hour shift. As I talked with her, mostly about my wildlife and nature photography, she eventually kept saying, "I think you would be interested in my property in Kewaskum." It turns out that Wendy owns a farm house just outside of Kewaskum... 60 acres of wooded land with a river running through it, surrounded by Kettle Moraine State Forest. Although the woods are not accessible, due to heavy undergrowth, her immediate yard is full of an endless supply of different flowers blooming throughout the summer, and also several hummingbird feeders, and oriole feeders.
Wendy has a well established nesting pair of hummingbirds in her yard. Although a hummingbird at a feeded is enough to entertain most amateur photographers and bird enthusiasts, Wendy's property offers a steady supply of photo opportunities of hummingbirds feeding at the different flowers in her yard. Other common photo ops that I've had in the past are frogs, dragonflies and damsleflies along the river immediatly behind her house, a variety of butterflies, birds catching butterflies, and even hummingbird moths!
A bonus in Wendy's yard is a rare wooden silo in excellent condition - these date back to the late 1800's! Most of them have rotted away, or were torn down and replaced with the concrete silos that we are all familiar with.
I have also had good luck during a small time frame in the spring, in the blossoming apple tree, with some good bird species eating the apple blossoms.
Here are some examples of some of the photographs that I have gotten there over the years...
(Not to be expected during a one time visit, depending on your experience, and equipment.)
In the three photos below, the red background is a barn, behind the main flower bed, where I concentrate my photography.
The hummingbird pictures, above and below, are an immature, fresh out of the nest, taken about a minute apart on August 21, 2008. The immatures are distinguished
by the rows of dots going up and down the throat - The red throat, that distinguishes the males from females, is not established yet..
I plan to schedule this fieldtrip around the end of summer, when the young hummingbirds are out of the nest. They are very "user friendly" for photographers.... much more tolorant of people than the adults.
If you are interested in photographing butterflies and other insects, and the flowers you find them on, feel free to email me (the link below) early in the spring, with your phone number. I go there throughout the spring and summer, and into the fall, and I can contact you, sometimes on short notice, to see if you want to join me.
THIS IS PRIVATE PROPERTY! PLEASE DO NOT GO THERE BY YOURSELF, UNLESS YOU MAKE PRIOR ARRANGEMENTS WITH WENDY!
E-mail me at:
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