Posts By lightshedder
White-breasted Nuthatch
White-breasted Nuthatch: Kennebunk, Maine, January 2023 — While we are on the subject of backyard birds, here is our resident White-breasted Nuthatch. We have a pair that come daily to the feeders on the back deck, year around. So let us take a moment to celebrate White-breasted Nuthatches. 🙂 Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Pro and Apple Photos. ISO 1000 @ f4 @ 1/500th.
Uganda Edition: Blue-headed Sunbird
Blue-headed Sunbird: Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park, Uganda, August 2022 — Another Albertine Rift endemic, from around the parking area at the trailhead for Gorilla Trekking. Gordon, our guide for the morning, and an excellent young guide/birder said, “Oh get this one! Take a photo!” and I did my best. We only saw it for a moment, though it can be fairly common in its restricted range. What a stunner! Sony Rx10iv at 591mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Pro and Apple Photos. ISO 500 @ f4 @ 1/500th.
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Red-bellied Woodpecker: Kennebunk, Maine, USA, January 2023 — When we first moved to Kennebunk, going on 30 years ago now, and up to a few years ago, a Red-bellied Woodpecker was a rare sighting in our yard. In fact we had probably been here at least 10 years before we saw our first one. Over the past 5 years, the number of sightings has steadily increased, and they have started coming to our back-deck feeding station on a semi-regular basis. We will go a month without seeing one, and then have a month, or a week at least, when they are at the feeder several times a day…I say “they”, but it could be just one…I have yet to see more than one at a time. They are among the most skitterish of our backyard birds. They generally disappear if there is slightest sign of movement in the house, but even at that they seem to be becoming more bold, or more secure. This one allowed me to stand behind the thermopane glass of the deck door, close enough so I had to zoom out to fit the bird in the frame, and take its photo as it used the feeder. Sony Rx10iv at 458mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Pro and Apple Photos. ISO 1250 @ f4 @ 1/500th.
Happy 2023: Red-breasted Nuthatch
Red-breasted Nuthatch: Kennebunk, Maine, USA, January 2023 — To celebrate the first day of 2023, I will come back home from my 2022 travels. It might seem from my postings that I must spend most of every year on foreign soil…but the fact is that I am only away from Maine for a few weeks each year. Most of the time the only birds I see are at the feeders on our back deck or somewhere around the town of Kennebunk. 🙂 I don’t see the Red-breasted Nuthatch every day…but the last few days at least one has been around, maybe more than one. Weather patterns have kept our feeders busy all day with the local mixed feeding flock coming by at least once an hour and staying for 15 minutes or so each visit. This was taken early yesterday, through the thermo-pane glass of the deck door. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Pro on the Mac Air. ISO 1000 @ f4 @ 1/500th.
Uganda Edition: Northern Double-collared Sunbird
Northern Double-collared Sunbird: Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park, Uganda, August 2022 — another bird from around the edges of the parking lot for the Gorilla Trek in Bwindi. Sunbirds are among my favorite African birds and I always have my eye out for them…and often spend way too much time photographing them when they are around. They have the intense colors of hummingbirds…but they sing! The Northern Double-collared has a restricted range along the Albertine Rift in southwest Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi and a larger range in the highlands of Kenya, as well as range in Western Africa. Sony Rx10iv at 580mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Pro and Apple Photos. ISO 500 and 400 @ f4 @ 1/500th.
Northern Barred-Woodcreeper
Northern Barred-Woodcreeper: Danta Cocorvodo Lodge, Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica, December 2022 — On our way for a morning excursion to the observation tower at Danta Corcovado, we happened on a swarm of small army ants crossing one of the trails…two swarm lines actually… one just below my cabin and one further down by the bridge over the stream. It is amazing how many birds, including this Woodcreeper, are specialized ant swarm feeders. For the next few days I will be sharing some of these ant swarm birds. I did a little research this morning to refresh my memory. Army ants are nomadic. They do not build permanent nests like other ants but can stay in a camp or bivouac for up to 20 days, foraging in lines out from the camp and feeding the queen as she broods eggs (up to a million eggs a month so these swarms are huge). The new worker ants reach maturity just as the eggs hatch and the whole swarm has to move on, in order to find enough food to feed the new larvae. That is generally when you see the long lines of ants moving through the forest. If you look carefully you will see that ants are moving in both directions as they carry prey back to feed the larvae and the queen, which are being carried along in the rear of the march. They pretty much kill any living insect or spider, small reptiles and amphibians, even birds, that they encounter (though many army ants can not actually consume the birds they kill)…so they stir up just about everything that is able to get out of their path. A surprising number of birds have specialized in following the ant swarms and feeding on the insects, spiders, an small vertebrates which are exposed as they flee. Some of them have the word “ant” as part of their name, but the Northern Barred-Woodcreeper is rarely seen except when an army ant swarm is passing over an open trail…as one was on that morning at Danta Corcovado. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications with multi-frame noise reduction. Processed in Pixelmator Pro and Apple Photos. Terrible light so equivalent ISO of 2500 @ f4 @ 1/500th.
Weavers of Bwindi: Strange and Brown-capped
Strange and Brown-capped Weavers: Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park, Uganda, August 2022 — The Strange Weaver (yes that is its official name) is another Albertine Rift endemic and the Brown-capped Weaver is limited to the Albertine Rift and the highlands of Kenya and maybe Tanzania (eBird shows nothing in Tanzania but the field guide range maps show a small area). There are also isolated populations of Brown -capped Weaver on the west coast of Africa. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Pro, Pixelmator Photo, and Apple Photos. Strange: ISO 2500 @ f4 @ 1/500th. Brown-capped: ISO 100 @ f4 @ 1/1000th.
Scarlet-rumped Tanager
Scarlet-rumped Tanager: Danta Corcovodo Lodge, Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica, December 2022 — The world is a poorer place since they lumped Passerini’s and Cherrie’s Tanagers into Scarlet-Rumped Tanager. I am sure they had good reasons, but still. Passerini’s used to the be the bird on Caribbean slope and Cherrie’s on the south Pacific slope…which includes the Osa Peninsula and the foothills above. Granted, the males, like this one from the roadside almost into Danta Corcovado Lodge, are visually identical, but the females are distinct…distinct enough to make anyone not armed with DNA data suspect that these are different species, especially combined with the clear geographical separation. But no. They are now all just Scarlet-rumped Tanagers. We saw them here in the lowlands, and we saw them in foothills at Wilson Botanical Gardens. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 1250 @ f4 @ 1/500th.
Black-faced Apalis
Black-faced Apalis: Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park, Uganda, August 2022 — This used to be the Mountain-masked Apalis, and is another Albertine Rift endemic…restricted in range to the highlands forests of Western Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi. It is a very active bird, often found, as we encountered it along the edge of the parking for the Gorilla Trek in Bwindi, in mixed feeding flocks…though typically higher in the canopy than we found it here. Sony Rx10iv at about 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. In the changing light of the understory, ISO 1600 down to ISO 100 @ f4 @ 1/500th.
Bronzed Cowbird
Bronzed Cowbird: Danta Corcovado Lodge, Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica, December 2022 — Another bird from the wet field just as you turn toward Danta Corcovado Lodge. There were many Bronzed Cowbirds, a few Shiny Cowbirds, and at least one Giant Cowbird in the field around the cattle. I had only a limited view out the windows on that side as I was sitting on the “wrong” side of the van, but I managed this portrait of a Bronzed on the wire. In other light that iridescence would be more bronze and gives the bird its name. I have seen these birds in Southern Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, and they have a foothold in California and Louisiana. They are occasionally seen along the coast as far as Florida. You can see them almost anywhere in lowland Central America where there are cleared fields and cattle. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 100 @ f5.5 @ 1/1000th.