Birding and Bird Photography

That works, thank you! The large camera in front of the face helps apparently. I tried this with a bedded whitetail first which is one of the hardest pictures to get. She didn't seem to care as long as the camera was to my face.



And I had a chance to stalk in on my unknown rapture. Saw him from pretty far away perched low and close to the ground. In fact looked like a blob from the distance I was away but somehow knew it was him. So spent 15 minutes moving into position behind him. I had the 60-250 on instead of the 300, think I will just keep the 300 mounted from now on that little bit of range makes a big difference and wished I would have had it on.



It was getting close to dark so it was during the golden hour and from other pictures I have taken pretty sure his chest is actually white. The sunlight turns the white on many birds that same color during the golden hour I have noticed.



Taking Ben's advice and every night the geese are flying over me to head back into town so getting lots of practice as he suggested. Long ways to go still body shooting instead of head shooting and panning to match speed is not as easy as it sounds. But even trying to get artistic now, yesterday evening the moon was up as they were flying and I tried to catch one with moon directly behind it. Got close but not perfect.



On purpose I position myself so that I have small windows in the trees to force myself to focus as quickly as possible. And panning through the trees keeping AF-C is tricky at times but it works if I do my part.



You guys have been a huge help to me and I can't thank you enough. Practice, practice and more practice, I have a long ways to go but the effort is already paying off.

 

Huh, very odd.
I'm glad it worked for you, Cold Iron! You should enter that moon picture in the symmetry weekly challenge for this week.
The blind was kinda a bust today...really overcast and no birds around me. I went to the wrong one!
Got better shots on an auto tour after we left the blinds. I'll get those up soon-ish...might be a while, though, I have a looooot of work to do this week.

 

Ha I have seen the winning picture for symmetry LOL. Not a chance of beating that one! And I have a long ways to go before I submit any pictures. Too bad to hear about the blind being a bust, yeah dang birds don't always cooperate. Looking forward to your pictures when you get a chance

 

Haha, yeeeaahhhh....I'm not trying very hard for this week. Just gonna pop a photo up pretty soon for the challenge.

 

Today was a bit of a bust. Flat light, grey. Weather keeps the birds down too.

 

Thanks! Shovelers are one of my favorites. Beside the woodies.

I saved my best. I need some real help identifying this one. It's a rare one, I'm sure




Just kidding. The little bastard invaded my frame as I was trying to pickup the Canada Geese in flight.

 

Fantastic, love how you were able to capture the fine details and colors on those ducks!

LOL I have lived in San Diego and Alameda. Been crapped on more than once by those guys, think they have a thing for me Still a nice shot.

 

Hot damn those are some awesome shots, Ian! Really fantastic colors!
Here are my best from Sacramento and Colusa NWRs:

Marsh Wren by 92shawman, on Flickr


Northern Harrier by 92shawman, on Flickr

Decided not to crop this one in because I liked seeing the ground under them

Northern Shovelers And Northern Pintail by 92shawman, on Flickr


Great Egret by 92shawman, on Flickr

My best Bufflehead so far:

Bufflehead by 92shawman, on Flickr

Gossiping hawks:

Red-tailed Hawks by 92shawman, on Flickr

Quiz time: Anyone want to explain why cormorants do this instead of waterproofing themselves?

Double-crested Cormorants by 92shawman, on Flickr


Red-tailed Hawk by 92shawman, on Flickr


Red-tailed Hawk by 92shawman, on Flickr


Western Meadowlark by 92shawman, on Flickr


Great Egret and various waterfowl by 92shawman, on Flickr


Northern Shoveler by 92shawman, on Flickr

More on my flickr account, especially of that red-tail hunting and eating. Don't want to fill too much of this up.

 

Yeah that was on the auto tour. The pictures I have of the hawk hunting on the levee and then on the log eating I think are all the same individual.
He was super close! Ended up flying right over the van, too close for me to shoot with the 400. Probably within 15 feet. It was crazy!

 

Thats one thing i have a hard time getting down here is raptors. I see them all the time, but cant ever get close enough to get good pic. Im am also diggin that pic of the hawk on the log.

 

http://www.texastraveltrade.ca/news...mericas-birdiest-city-award-10-years-in-a-row

For all of you thinking of taking a trip............just throwing it out there lol !!!!!!

 

Great pictures Kevin! I also really like the hawk on the log. Finally figured out my unknown raptor is a sharp shinned hawk And thanks for the video of 007 Ben. Crows are a real problem downtown here and they are really struggling to find a way to keep them out. They are too smart for most methods and learn quickly.

Hmmm.... I'm leaving at 3 AM to go 6 hours straight North for the rest of the week. It was -30 F this morning in Ely what was I thinking, I should have planned to get on I-35 and go straight South! Everyone around me is headed to Mexico and other warm spots and I usually do too but each year it is harder to come back to the cold after I do. But maybe next year....

 

That's crazy, Ben! Crows are so freakin' smart, it's too bad they're also super annoying...
I saw a segment of "The Life of Birds" featuring New Caledonian Crows foraging. They eat grubs out of dead fallen trees, but the grubs are too far down in holes so they stick sticks into the holes to get the grubs. Instead of impaling them, though, the crows poke at the grub until the grub bites the stick and then the crow can pull the grub out. Crazy!!

And nice ID, Cold Iron. I couldn't tell what it was from that photo.
I think I may have seen a sharpie on Sunday out at the refuge, but I'm not 100% sure...coulda been a cooper's.

 

So many incredible photos posted while I've been writing reports ad nauseum. This coming week is Preserve Survey Week! I'm going to try using the Nikon D5000 (husband's). That was the camera with the focus problem from the painted redstart photos. I've reset all of the settings to factory (husband was playing with it a bit) and now I'm testing on the backyard - looks better now. Sounds like shutter priority is the way to go and use as fast as you can but still keep a good F stop. I want to look for a 400 mm lens. Have any of you tried the Sigma, vivitar etc lenses? The Nikkor 400 is so $$$. I need handheld option b/c I'm going for little birds (gnatcatcher and warblers) and am hiking a lot so I dont want to go with tripod mount.

 

Anybody else participating in the Great Backyard Bird Count this weekend ?

 

YES!!
I'm also recording everything in the yard for the year. This drought is a bugger for the birds as well. Definitely missing some species already.

 

Log in with your eBird account

http://gbbc.birdcount.org/get-started/

 

I have a monopod - maybe I'll trying renting a 400mm lens first and see if I can handle that plus carry my maps and stuff. There is a 28-300 Nikkor out there that isn't hideously expensive (but expensive enough) but I was hoping for the 400, having seen what you're able to do with it.

 

Grab one of the Nikon 400mm manual focus lenses from the 80's.

http://www.keh.com/camera/Nikon-Manual-Focus-Fixed-Focal-Length-Lenses/1/sku-NK064018888750?r=FE

 

I had asked a similar question back in the beginning of the thread and MTgirl replied with:

However... After doing a lot more research the Sigma lenses can perform differently on different brands of cameras. So it would be worth checking into a Nikon forum and also reviews for the lens that your looking at IMO. Turns out the Sigma bigma is popular with many Pentax users and works well. But there are other factors involved, in the North in the winter the 150-500 at F6.3 makes it pretty much useless as they require a fair amount of light. And have no Weather Resistance so that rules them out for half the year for me. Given your location neither one may be an issue for you. Older manual lenses as mentioned isn't a bad idea although many argue that the optics have gotten so much better over the last 10-15 years that it isn't worth it. Not sure I buy that one though. Manual focus will make BIF a challenge... Then again I find even AF can be tricky with birds and other wildlife in heavy vegetation. Took 29 pictures a couple of days ago of a snowshoe hare in deep cover and only had 4 keepers. I'm learning in tight spots to get as close as I can with AF and then slightly tweak the final focus, a couple of inches of focus either way makes a big difference in the final shot. When it is -28 F like it was yesterday morning when I took this shot just breathing on the back of the camera covers it in ice so I do a lot of shooting "blind" but sometimes it pays off



Not sure how well the Nikon lenses work with a teleconventer but that may be another option. The Pentax 1.4X TC was on the roadmap when I purchased mine and will be released next month. It is Weather Resistant which is important for the environments I live in and expose it to so looking forward to adding it to my 300mm F4 which will make it 420mm F5.6. In a couple of years if this is something I am still into, and willing to bet that I am, will pick up a Canon and L series lenses. Although the lower priced L lenses are not all WR, and once they are the price brings new meaning to the phrase sticker shock.