Hey, I’m hosting edition #74 of I and the Bird here at Consworld this week. I have a good number of wonderful submissions and have enjoyed reading them all.
If you haven’t submitted your recent post having to do with wild bird(s), the time to do so is now. Send to con AT condaily DOT com by tomorrow, Tuesday, April 29th. And do come back on Thursday for the carnival!
Standing on an old log at dusk, this red fox looks toward the setting sun one evening this week. My dog growls at the door when foxes are near so I know to grab the camera and hurry out to capture an image or two. The dog doesn’t understand why I won’t let him out to chase the invader away.
Birds and me. We watch each other. Some don’t seem to care how close I get if I’m not looking at them. Yet, when I point the telephoto lens they often fly. The filter probably looks like a big eye.
The smaller, faster birds tolerate me moving around quite close. The larger birds seem to need more space.
I sometimes photograph through a window if the large shy birds are close to my house. Going out after they’ve arrived just stresses them and makes them fly away. I don’t want to stress the birds.
Outdoors, I move slowly, just a big mammal sitting or walking slowly about showing little interest in them. I wait for a good image moment and nonchalantly do the capture trying to keep them from feeling stressed by my attention.
I sometimes use a blind outdoors. Still, they often see me go into it or spy me through the lens hole and fly.
My blind is a camouflage pop-up hunting blind. I tie it to the deck rails or stake it to the ground near a tree where birds perch and feed. I can set up a tripod in the blind and choose a couple of natural looking perches, hovering spots near feeders and flowers for hummingbirds, or ground feeding areas with nice backgrounds that are easily captured through the lens openings in the blind.Then I wait, playing with settings and doing some test captures of my chosen locations. When the birds come, I’m ready photograph.
The birds always seem to know when I’m in the blind. Some of the friendlier ones have even flown right up to the lens opening to look in at me. But, it’s nice on cold, windy mornings and keeps the sun off my easily sunburned skin. Out of the blind, I often capture handheld leaving the tripod behind so that I can roam from place to place to capture birds who are watching me to make sure I don’t get to close. My 100 – 400 mm telephoto lens with image stabilization works well handheld at the fast shutter speeds I use for photographing birds.
I try to ID the birds I photograph for titling the prints or posts on my blog. But, I make ID mistakes. Fortunately, I receive help from an 11 year old birder who has been meeting me to talk birds at an autumn show I’ve done the past 2 years. She checks all my titles and gives me tips on being a birder. I give her tips on photographing them. It’s a good trade; I’d like to talk with her more often.
I hate to bore my avid birder friends, but it doesn’t matter to me that it’s the same species I’ve photographed so many times before.
I was sitting on the deck waiting for some flying things to get into position for a good image. The birds didn’t cooperate, but a jet and the waxing moon rising together captured my attention.
When I was a child, my mother sang to me about a happy robin coming in the spring.
Though I was happy to see this robin a couple of days ago, I’m not sure the robin was happy about all the melting snow about.
The snow lasted a couple of cold days, but it’s warmer now and the snow is gone except in areas of deep shade.
This is April in Consworld, snow and melt, cold nights and warm bright days, anticipation in every twig and species, and spring fever in me.
I want to photograph the snow showers and melt, the winterbuds unfolding, and the early wildflowers. I want to walk along the creek and around the ponds in the mornings looking for spring birds and landscape views to capture. I don’t want to do any work. I want to play.
Snow all day today. The elk knew yesterday. They often come down into the creek valley when it’s going to snow. Yesterday evening there were 40 or 50 cows and young near the creek road. This one was willing to pose for the camera a moment when I pulled over to watch them.
Five shy wild turkeys have been passing by my window this week.
The turkeys leave at the slightest sound or movement, so I captured these images through the dirty double pane glass on a dark and snowy spring day. Even so, they noticed me watching them and hurried away.
This grinning bird’s no fool.
It’s eating Con’s special suet.