The King of the Hunting Birds, Time spent in nature makes me realize how little I know about the world around us. The eagle is by far my most favorite bird. They have this majestic look about them.
Their wing spans are beautiful as well as their hunting skills when out catching fish. I don’t see eagles as often as I used to. I lived along the Mississippi river for awhile which was a wonderful place to see these mighty birds.
But I am always looking for them during our travels. This young eagle here we saw when we were in Montana. It was snowing out that day, but I was able to get a couple of photos.
Another New Bird, yep this is the Brown headed nuthatch. I never even think to look up how many species of one kind of bird there are until I see something new like this one. There are 4 kind of nut hatches in North America.
The Brown headed, Red Breasted, White breasted and the Pygmy nuthatch.
Red breasted nuthatch below. Looks more golden then red in my photo.
These two photos below I just grabbed off of the internet. I don’t have a photo of these yet. The one on the right is the Pygmy nuthatch which is found out west.
I may have a photo of the one on the left, the white breasted nuthatch. But I have not found it yet.
Nictitating Membrane, Have you ever seen one? Well if you take enough photos of birds, eventually you will see it in your photo like this one below.
One of the great things about photographing wildlife is the opportunity to see aspects of the animals you might not normally see.
An example of this is the nictitating membrane on birds. The nictitating membrane is a third eyelid under the typical two eye lids we all have. It’s a translucent eyelid that can be closed while the other eyelids are open to clean and protect the eye.
How incredible is this, especially since some of these birds hang out at the beaches. This really comes in handy to keep the sand out of its eye.
New Bird to the Count, 155 birds photographed. This is not the best picture, they were pretty far away and it was early morning light. But the bird in the back with the wings out is the new bird. I am not positive, it is either a Bonaparte Gull, or perhaps a laughing gull.
But I did not even notice it until I saw this photo. But I bet Brian from Wildlife Intrigued will know. He is my go to person for bird names. Plus he writes some excellent post with humor and lots of great photos.
One can never take enough photos of these little plovers. They are just so darn cute.
Its Almost the Weekend, hope you have a great one full of good food, laughter and good weather. These pelicans are enjoying the morning, everyday is a Friday for them. 🙂
Here is the link to visit my video of the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge in Washington. Nisqually Wildlife Refuge. 🙂
The Loggerhead Shrike is a gray bird with a black mask and white flashes in the black wings. They have large, blocky heads and a thick bill with a small hook.
I am starting to see some new birds again. I am continuing my bird count for this new year. I am not starting over for the count, I am doing a life time count. So this bird brings me up to 154 birds photographed.
Birding in Washington, This cute little warbler found a tasty morsel for its lunch. Even though some of these bugs can bug us when we are out and about. They do supply nutrients to so many other animals and birds.
This young eagle was flying by and I snapped a quick photo of it. The photo is a bit blurry but I never throw away a photo if I can make a painting out of it as the next photo shows.
Imagination helps us to create art, I can picture it and it then comes to life on my digital canvas.
Lots of Eagles Nisqually, we continue our hike along the boardwalks at the Nisqually National Wildlife refuge. Where the walkway goes way out into the sound. The tide was out when we were there and the people were out as well enjoying all the eagles, young and old ones. People and birds, 🙂
The eagles were quite far away, but the best part of seeing all these eagles, was actually hearing them as they called back and forth. Nothing prettier then the sound of eagles calling I think.
Nisqually National Wildlife Area, Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge is located on the Interstate 5 corridor, 20 miles south of Tacoma Washington and 8 miles east of Olympia in the Nisqually Valley.
The area is not easily missed when driving on the highway – the vista opens up and the estuary leading to South Puget Sound is visible on the north side of the interstate.
We were camping not to far this wildlife refuge. This is one of the first things we look for when we are in a new area and this was only 10 min from our campsite.
An amazing place for sure, board walks throughout the area and photographers every where. It was so much fun to see so many people carrying tri pods and cameras. Everyone being quiet so we don’t spook the birds.
This is where I photographed this Red Breasted Sap Sucker below.
A fox hiding in the grass.
This big old barn was on the refuge, maybe it was a farm at one point. This barn is huge and there are two of them here. I do like the old barns. They just don’t build them like that anymore.
This was the location I spotted my first Rufous Hummingbird as well. This park is over 3000 acres and we walked a lot of it. But I do hope to go there again to see more of the 200 species of birds that stop there during migration.
The Kingfisher, I am getting closer to taking a good photo of this beautiful bird. I take my chair and camera and just sit still where it likes to fish. One has to have lots of patience and sit very still for these birds to not take off. This is the fun part of wildlife photography for me.
Fog and Sunshine Photography, this time of year there are a lot of foggy days in the south. Which I love for photography. This blue heron is perched on a pole with some heavy fog behind him that gives a wonderful blurred background to this photo.
But, sunshine is a photographers best friend when it comes to enhancing detail in your subjects. We have taken up fishing here, well I shouldn’t say we, husband has taken up fishing and I go along with my camera. Because birds and fishing go hand in hand. They like to be close to the people fishing just in case they can catch a free meal.
This allows me to have some great photo opportunities of these birds close up and personal.
Birding Adventures, one of my goals for this year is to get a really nice photo of the King Fisher Bird. In my area there is the Belted King Fisher. I know where this one below hangs out, I just have to get there early enough and sit patiently waiting for it to land in a nice sunny spot.
I was able to capture this photo as the king fisher was hovering over water looking for some food down below. It was quite far away and the sun caught its wing a bit, but the head was still in the shadows. I will keep working on it and let you know when I finally get that shot I am looking for.
I see these red berries everywhere this time of year, I am not sure what they are or if a bird even eats them. But they add a nice contrasting color to the winter browns.
Red Shouldered Hawk, I finally photographed a hawk. Well, I photographed one flying quite a while ago. Not sure what kind it was. But these two sat so nice for me as I was walking along the road underneath them.
At first I went out without my camera for my morning walk. Which I had told myself many times to not do that. So these two landed in a tree in front of me first when I did not have a camera. I continued my walk and they landed in another tree above me.
So I stopped and said, “Fine, I am going to go get my camera and you two better still be here when I get back. ” As I was saying it to them.
Usually they don’t do what I ask them to do, but this time they were still there. It is early morning so they have a warm glow to them from the sun just coming up and then to get a pair of them is quite a treat for me to add to my bird count.
My Favorite Bird of Birds, The Pelican. When in the south, one must go see the brown pelicans. Not only are they amazing to watch catching fish and landing on water. They can have a comical look to them as well, especially when they look right at you.
I was down by the water and these to characters were following me as I walked along the dock. They are looking for a hand out in the way of free fish. Which I did not have.
So I actually laid down on the dock and put my camera right above the water as they inched closer to see what it was. Which enabled me to get this nice photo of them at their level. I just love photographing these guys.
I heard this song the other day by Alan Jackson, I found the lyrics to be very fitting.
The older I get The more I think You only get a minute, better live while you’re in it ‘Cause it’s gone in a blink And the older I get The truer it is It’s the people you love, not the money and stuff That makes you rich (video below)The Older I Get Video Here
The older I get The longer I pray I don’t know why, I guess that I’ve Got more to say And the older I get The more thankful I feel For the life I’ve had and all the life I’m living still
Red Bellied Sap Sucker, this colorful bird I photographed when I was out west. I have not taken many bird photos this past summer after we got home. We were to busy preparing for winter and just enjoying being home and not moving.
I can’t wait to start photographing wildlife again, I just haven’t seen much the last few weeks. A lot of beautiful landscapes for now.
I Found These Photos that I had not edited yet. I had shared a couple of them quite awhile ago but I found more as I was cleaning up some of my photo files. This bird is the Vermillion Fly Catcher and we saw this one at Big Bend National Park in Texas a few months ago.
Technology is sure nice when it comes to organizing all the photos that I take. But even with it, I lose track of some of them. Luckily one only has to enter a word in the search bar to find things I have forgotten about.
I have a video down below or you can click on this link to hear some bird sounds of two different places where I was videoing birds in their area.
How I Edit Bird Photos, these Ruby Throated Hummingbirds have been very active this past weekend. I have been sitting on my porch with my camera set on continuous high speed trying to get some good photos of these fast little birds in flight before they leave here and head south for the winter.
But because they are so fast, one can’t really get great compositions without doing a little post processing in the editing room.
So here are a couple of examples of how I crop a photo of these hummingbirds. The first photo is the original, the bird is off center and there are to many distractions with the wood post and the feeder to really see the bird itself.
I love the detail of its tail feathers in this shot, so I cropped everything out and brought up the exposure a bit because its body is in the shadow and now you can see a bit of its green color around the wings.
The sun is off to my right in these photos, so the bird is facing me and you can’t really see its beautiful throat colors without the sun shinning directly on them.
So again, I raised the exposure a bit in photoshop and used a vertical format for cropping to showcase the bird itself, now the one thing this composition is missing is its other wing. But, like I said they are so fast, we can’t see the wing movements to shoot at the exact time. Only high speed camera settings can do this and we can only take what we get.
If you notice the tail feathers are clear but the wings have a little motion blur, the average wing beat is around 53 beats per second and I have the camera set up at 1/4000 of a sec shutter speed.
It is so fun trying to get good shots of these beautiful little birds.
This photo below, I wasn’t sure I could isolate the bird from the feeder because it is so close to it. It is quite the challenge to photograph these birds flying away from you and to be able to see the tail feathers from the top like this photo.
Photoshop is a great tool for editing, along with light room. Again, I used a vertical format and really like the diamond shape light spot behind the bird. All these photos are taken with my camera set to 1/4000 sec shutter speed, f8, ISO 1200 and 600 mm lens.
The Rubies are Back, now I am still posting photos from our trip around the states from this last winter. But we are home now so I have to throw in some photos from here, like my favorite little Ruby Throated Hummingbirds that visit my flowers here every summer.
They are hard to photograph, they are constantly chasing each other.
On occasion I can find them sitting almost still on my garden fence. But the camera still has to be set at a very high shutter speed to get a glance at those wings that move so fast.
Songs and Sounds of Desert Birds, I just posted a video on my you tube channel highlighting all these wonderful birds and the sounds they make. The bird one hears the most is the White Winged Dove, but the most interesting one I think is the Gambel’s Quail.
Birds and Bunnies in Soft Light, what is soft light you might ask? Well it is considered to be diffused light, which I have the best luck finding in the early morning hours of a day. But you can always use the shade of a tree or the soft shadows of any structure.
One doesn’t always have a chance to place our wildlife in the right lighting for that, so the rule of thumb, depending on where you live of course, is to not photograph between 11am and 2pm. That is usually when the sun is straight over head and it is like shinning a giant flashlight right on your subject.
So for me, early morning is my favorite time of day to photograph outdoors..
Its the Simple Things that make me smile the most. Like this first photo, I did not have the camera prepared for this shot, but this little hummingbird showed up out of the blue and I just clicked away. Capturing a bit of light illuminating its beautiful colors.
Life can be a long bumpy road at times, but a journey worth taking, as it is a gift. The idea that any of us are here at all is worth thinking about. The true miracle of birth is something that I think about often, for I have never had children of my own. But, when you stop and remember how we are even here, that we all started from a tiny little cell.
A New Hummingbird From Washington, Well I finally photographed a new hummingbird. I have only ever seen one species of hummingbird and that is the Ruby Throated. We just happened across another nature preserve in Washington when we were there and found two new birds, no 3 new ones, including this hummingbird. Bird count is 152.
One of the feistiest hummingbird in North America. The brilliant orange male and the green-and-orange female Rufous Hummingbird are relentless attackers at flowers and feeders, going after (if not always defeating) even the large hummingbirds of the Southwest, which can be double their weight.
Rufous Hummingbirds are wide-ranging, and breed farther north than any other hummingbird. Look for them in spring in California, summer in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, and fall in the Rocky Mountains as they make their annual circuit of the West.
Spring Birds, I am seeing a lot of Orioles this year, I believe this one below is a female oriole. Not sure which one, there are a few different species of them.
The Pileated Woodpecker is one of the biggest, most striking forest birds on the continent. It’s nearly the size of a crow, black with bold white stripes down the neck and a flaming-red crest.
Look (and listen) for Pileated Woodpeckers whacking at dead trees and fallen logs in search of their main prey, carpenter ants, leaving unique rectangular holes in the wood. The nest holes these birds make offer crucial shelter to many species including swifts, owls, ducks, bats, and pine martens.
Spring is in the Air, the sun shine really brings out the colors to some of our song birds. Where in the shade they may look like plain old black birds. But when the Sun shines, the vibrant colors do as well.
I think this one is checking out his toe nails, might be wanting a little pedicure. 🙂
Colorful World With Ducks, nothing more colorful then ducks in the spring. I am not sure what is up with these ducks that look like they are wearing top hats. But the vibrant green colors are always so beautiful in the spring.
Here is a fun little video of these ducks swimming at this natural spring pond. Called; Synchronized Diving
