05-28-12 House Finch on Perch

I was happy to get a shot of a house finch on my perch.  The head position isn't god enough to make it a portfolio candidate though.  Little birds never stop moving so it's tough to capture the perfect "pose". (My backyard, Morrison, IL)

    

Here's a cell phone photo of my set-up.  It's just a twig duct-taped to a light stand and placed over a hanging platform feeder.  The birds often stop on the perch to scout for predators before going down to the feeder.  I hide in the blind with my camera on a tripod and wait.

05-28-12 No photo but I saw a Yellow Throated Wood Warbler today.

A few years ago, I took an interest in photographing trains.  At first it was about taking the best shot I could at a given location but soon became more about trying to photograph as many different locomotives as I could.  I found myself choosing locations based on my ability to photograph every engine on the train from the side.  Now I don't think I could pick out ten shots that I thought were good enough to call a portfolio of train images.  That experience played a part in deciding to make this bird project about collecting ten great images instead of just photographing as many different species as possible.  

Today, I was walking on Lister Road and saw a new species of bird.  I was carrying my phone (aka pocket computer) so I pulled up the iBird app and punched in Illinois, Secondary Color: Black, Head Pattern: Masked.  The app returned seven birds that matched those descriptions and I easily identified the bird I saw as a Common Yellowthroat of the Wood Warbler family.  If I had been carrying my camera I could have gotten a snapshot of it, but in the end it would have been nothing more than a side shot of another locomotive.

05-27-12 Coots

This is a coot, they float on the water like a duck but when it's time to move to a new location they run across the top of the water.  (Lock and Dam 13, Fulton, IL)

I couldn't resist attaching the 2x converter to my 400mm lens even though the 2 f-stop loss means I am using an 800mm f11 and auto-focus doesn't work when your maximum aperture is f11. The results weren't too bad.  There are a lot of things that could have made this shot better but a coot standing on top of a turtle was worth posting. (Lock and Dam 13, Fulton, IL) 

I took this shot of a Killdeer from my car.  I wish I could have gotten down to ground level but if I had tried to step out of the car he would have flown off. (Lock and Dam 13, Fulton, IL)

I started the morning at Rockwood still trying for a portfolio quality shot of a red-winged blackbird.  It's tough to get a shot of a whole bird because the vegetation is getting so thick.  I think this is a juvenile red-winged BB.  The females are this same color but they're heads aren't quite so "fluffy" (Rockwood State Park, Morrison, IL)

05-19-20 Afternoon at Lock and Dam 14

I was in the Quad Cities so I decided to go home through LeClaire and stop at Lock and Dam 14.  When birds are in water it is best to get down as close to water level as possible.  I was able to do that but since the opposite shore line is so close, it brought a horizon line through the birds neck.  Having the horizon through the middle of the frame is not my preference. (Lock and Dam 14, LeClaire, IA)

This is a tree swallow.  Watching them swoop, dart and dive is almost like being at an air-show.  (Lock and Dam 14, LeClaire, IA)

 

Tree swallows are also a beautiful bird to see perched.  A barbed wire fence isn't the ideal perch but this will serve as my best tree swallow shot for now.  (Lock and Dam 14, LeClaire, IA)

05-19-20 Morning Trip to Rockwood

Another trip to the park and another try at a red-winged blackbird.  This was shot at 1/1000 and the wings are still blurrier than I would like.  (Rockwood State Park, Morrison, IL)

The other thing I want to do with this blog is document as many different species of birds as I can.  This is a Cormorant. (A Double-Crested Cormorant I think) Not a great photo, and cropped quite a bit, but an interesting bird. (Rockwood State Park, Morrison, IL)

05-16-12 The beginning

I ordered a Canon 400mm f5.6 L lens and it came today.  I didn't have much time because I have "homework" to do for my Six Sigma Green Belt class, but I had to get out to the park and try out the new lens.  As I left the house my kids were shouting at me, "Homework first, Dad!"
Do as I say, not as I do.  Does that still work?

Red-winged Blackbirds are fairly approachable and easy to find so they are a good candidate to make it into my final ten images.  The challenge in photographing them is getting a good exposure.  In this case I wish the bird was lighter, showing more details.  On the other hand the sky and leaves are already too light.  (Rockwood State Park, Morrison, IL)