Below you will find pages that utilize the taxonomy term “Birds”
Baby Birds in my BBQ Prep Table
Baby birds in BBQ prep station - the mom thought it was the best place to make a nest
I thought I’d blogged before about the bird who made a nest in my BBQ prep station, but a couple quick searches didn’t find it. So the background is that this bird decided the best place to nest is at my BBQ prep station which has a couple shelves that basically look like a bird house (a small, circular hole). I tried to frustrate the bird out of doing it by dumping out the nest daily. At some point I let the bird win. A few months later, these baby birds were born.
Maryland Zoo Birds
I got pretty lucky to arrive as they had some neat birds out where you could get right up next to them. There were also some cool birds out in the bird sanctuary area.
Mid-October 2015 Zoo Visit
For the first time in something like 3 years I took my Sigma 120-400mm lens to the zoo. I had intended to get some Firefox (Red Panda) photos and videos, but they weren’t there. That was also a bummer for Scarlett as seeing the Red Pandas was the reason she’d asked us to take her to the zoo.
First off we saw one of the pandas:
[video mp4="/images/2015/10/Panda-Scratches-his-butt.mp4"][/video]
But what was a lot of fun was taking photos of the birds; birds that would have been quite hard for me to see in the wild. I think they came out pretty nicely considering the darkness in the bird house and the fact that I was hand-holding the lens. It seems like some of the higher ISO photos didn’t even have too much noise, so I’ll explore using it in the future to get the exposure a little more correct in camera. (if the photos look blurry when you click on them, give it a little time to load)
Scarlett and Birds
Don’t worry birds, I will feed you. Dad, feed the birds.
-Scarlett speaking to the birds in the woods behind our house (and then to me) a couple weeks ago
Photo Opportunities in your own backyard
It’s easy to lust after photo opportunities elsewhere as I did in a recent post. But when you find that happening, just remember there’s a whole world in your backyard. If you live in an urban neighborhood like the protagonist of Pecker, you can focus on portraits and street photography - candid or otherwise. But if you live in a suburban or rural area, you’ll find a lot of naturalistic photo opportunities in your backyard. For inspiration, take a look at these photos taken in my backyard and my parents’ backyard. (I’ve stretched the definition of backyard a little to include the surrounding neighborhood that’s within a short walk - say, within a mile) (Yes, a lot of them are birds, but that’s what really interests me outside)
Top 200 Photos: #80
Today’s Top 200 Photo entry is for the birds
I love how impossibly large these beaks are. I also love how ridiculously colorful these birds are. The beak itself is about 3 different colors. Then the bird itself is another 3 different colors. I really like the depth of field effect in this shot.
Well, we’ve made it to photo #80 and the images are starting to spread out more. Basically, as a general trend, the photos that people like tend to get more views more often. So the images start getting further and further apart in views. As an example, at the time that I’m writing this, this photo has 590 views and #61 has 683 views.
Top 200 Photos: #136
An avian photo for today’s Top 200 Photo.
I enjoy all the birds in my backyard, but nothing beats the thrill of identifying a new bird. It’s hard to get a good enough shot to be able to ID it because enough birds look similar enough that it can be hard for the novice birder to identify them.
Top 200 Photos: #168
A bird in this Top 200 Photo.
This is one of my best bird photos both from a subject standpoint and a technical standpoint. Birds are exceptionally hard to photograph. All animals are hard as they’re more unpredictable than humans, but birds are exceptionally frantic. It’s probably partly because they have a few predators and partly because they need to constantly eat because of their high metabolisms. So it’s hard to capture a bird tack sharp like this one. It’s made a little harder by the fact that my camera’s old so I can’t boost the ISO high enough to get a nice, fast shutter speed.
A Daily Photo: Blue Jay
Another hard bird to photograph. The blue jays are in my yard even less often than the cardinals. And they run away at the slightest move by me. But, once again, patience paid off.
A Daily Photo: Cardinal
Ever since I put up the bird feeders (and even before that) I’ve been trying to get good shots of the cardinal. With my Sigma 120-400mm and some patience I was finally able to succeed. These guys are really skittish. If I come outside when I see them, they run away. So I need to already be standing out there for them to ignore me and come out and let me take their photo. This photo has been increasing in views rather quickly. I’m a pretty big fan of it myself.
Bird Feeder Update
It’s been nearly a month since I put up the bird feeders in our house and I have been enjoying them nearly every day since then. In fact, the only negative has been the cost of bird food. But, as my mother-in-law put it, I get the benefits of having birds without the hassle of having them as pets. At first we had a few birds visiting the feeders each day. Now, during the busy bird breakfast hours, we get multiple birds at once. Interestingly, on the whole, the birds to not fight with each other. Rather, if there are more birds than spots at the feeder, they will queue up on nearby branches. I was very surprised by this behaviour because I thought they would surely fight over this nearly infinite food source.
Bird Feeder
[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“375” caption=“Just barely beat the sun getting our bird feeders up on the first day”] [/caption]
Almost since we moved into our house we’ve been fascinated by the birds we have seen in our front and back yards. Both the wife and I love birding in general and I love photographing birds. So, after a bit of discussion we decided to get a bird feeder. We ended up getting two of them to accommodate different birds and different seed types. Then I dug a hole and attached the bird feeders to a stick we had in the garage. I read a few books on birds and expected it might take a while for the birds to discover the feeder. I was extremely delighted the following day to find birds at the feeder when I got home from work! These little guys would flit out of the woods, peck a bite, and fly right back out. So it was very hard to get a photo, especially with the sun beginning to set. At the end of this post is the best shot I got.