Posts in Category: wildlife
Chickadee, ventral view
Black-capped Chickadee, Kennebunk Maine
Chickadees are acrobatic birds and I love watching them flit and hop and climb around the feeders on the back deck. They get into the most amazing poses. Occasionally I even try to catch them with the camera. More occcasionally I actually catch them. 🙂
Sony Rx10iii at 600mm equivalent field of view. 1/250th @ ISO 200 @ f4. Processed in Polarr on my iPad Pro.
Downy in the snow…
Downy Woodpecker, Kennebunk Maine
Heavy, wet, clingy snow through the day and night on Wednesday piled up on branches and the back deck feeding station to provide some unique photo-ops. The Downy Woodpecker was not much inconvenienced since it spends much of its time feeding on the bottom side of branches anyway. 🙂
Sony Rx10iii at 600mm equivalent field of view. 1/400th @ ISO 100 @ f4. Processed and cropped for scale in Polarr on my iPad Pro.
Nuthatch
White-breasted Nuthatch, Kennebunk Maine
Another shot from the back deck feeding station, this time from the rail of the deck. White-breasted Nuthatch. This is pretty much a “bird-in-the-hand” view. I especially like the feet for some reason. 🙂
Sony Rx10iii at 600mm equivalent field of view. 1/250th @ ISO 125 @ f4. Processed in Polarr on my iPad Pro.
Winter Finch…
American Goldfinch, Kennebunk Maine
I am having a lot of fun with the back deck feeding station this winter. There have even been a few days when the birds were active and the light was good for photography. This is one of the American Goldfinches that was flocking with the Bluebirds the other day. This is just about an ideal shot. Close in, with an interesting background, and great light for feather detail. No credit to me, other than the foresight to bold the apple branches to the deck around the feeders. 🙂
Sony Rx10iii at 600mm equivalent field of view. 1/320th @ ISO 100 @ f4. Processed in Polarr on my iPad Pro.
Bluebirds in the yard!
Eastern Bluebird on our back deck feeder station, Kennebunk Maine
We have lived here in Kennebunk, in this house, for over 20 years, and yesterday we had a new yard bird. That is always exciting. A small feeding flock that included at least 4 Eastern Bluebirds came to the back deck feeding station. Bluebirds are primarily insect eaters, so they don’t generally visit feeders (unless you have live mealworms out), but they were with a group of American Goldfinches, and Bluebirds have been known to supplement their diet with sunflower kernels (and fruits and berries). I suspect the Bluebirds were foraging on the fully opened and half eaten sunflower seeds the Goldfinches were dropping. A few did come up to deck level and perch on the railings and on the apple branches bolted to the deck for perches around the feeding station. I stepped out on the back deck with my camera and stood quietly until both Goldfinches and Bluebirds got comfortable enough with me there to perch 8 feet away. It was a cold, clear, winter day and the light was great. It does not get any better than that!
Sony Rx10iii at 600mm equivalent field of view. 1/250th @ ISO 160 @ f4. Processed in Polarr on my iPad Pro. I edged as far out on the deck as I dared but I was still shooting under a branch that came up and to the right over the Bluebird’s head. I removed it with TouchRetouch, also on my iPad Pro. If you want to explore the feather detail you can look at this image, and others of the Bluebirds and Goldfinches, on my WideEyedInWonder site. This link takes you to this image.
Nuthatch
White-breasted Nutchatch, Kennebunk Maine
It was dark and rainy yesterday, here in Kennebunk Maine, so of course, the birds were very active at the feeder. I was tempted out to the deck for a few photos, though the low light made focus difficult and pushed the ISO higher than I would have liked. This White-breasted Nuthatch performed nicely for me, (and there was a Red-breasted in the suet feeder as well, pic maybe tomorrow 🙂 This is not a bad shot for ISO 1600.
Sony Rx10iii at 600mm equivalent field of view. 1/100th @ f4. Processed and cropped slightly in Polarr on my iPad Pro.
Things are looking up…Titmouse
Tufted Titmouse, the yard, Kennebunk Maine
Sometimes when the birds are very active at the feeder I can not resist getting the camera and, the season, a coat and hat, and stepping out the back deck door. Sometimes the birds will tolerate me there for a half hour at a time. Sometimes they are off at the first crack of the door and will not return while I am out there. I have not figured out what makes the difference. I suppose it might be how desperate they are for sunflower seeds. 🙂
This Tufted Titmouse was one of the few who stuck around long enough to pose for me the other day when I tried the experiment again. It was “we are not desperate” day, and I was only out long enough to see the birds in the treetops moving on to other yards. Still I like this shot. The sunflower feeder is right over his head, but it looks like his aspirations might be even higher. It might make a great inspirational poster (though I don’t actually approve of the genre, in general).
Sony RX10iii at 600mm equivalent field of view. Program mode. 1/250th @ ISO 160 @ f4. Processed in Polarr on my iPad Pro.
Winter ducks on the Mousam
Mallards, the Mousam River at Roger’s Pond Park, Kennebunk Maine
It has been super cold the past few days (and nights) and the Mousam River has finally frozen up to the rapids at Roger’s Pond Park here in Kennebunk Maine. That is traditionally the edge of the ice in Winter, and is where the ducks gather to feed, and sometimes the Eagles too. This is the largest single flock of Mallards I have seen there this winter so far. Gotta love that iridescent green!
Sony RX10iii at 424mm equivalent field of view. 1/400th @ ISO 100 @ f4. Processed in PhotoShop Express on my iPad Pro.
Common Eider keeps her crab…
Common Eider (female), Back Creek, Kennebunk Maine
I wrote about this female Common Eider a few days ago. I watched her catch crabs just off the bridge near our beach where it crosses Back Creek for half an hour the other day, and watched her repeatedly avoid having her catch taken by a predatory gull. Her technique was simple. She took the crab where the gull could not go…back under water. This sequence catches the action. It reads as text would, left to right and down line by line.
Sony Rx10iii at 600mm equivalent field of view. 1/250th @ ISO 100 @ f4. Processed in Polarr on my iPad Pro, and assembled in Frame Magic.
Female Bluebird. A poem…
Female Bluebird, Roger’s Pond Park, Kennebunk Maine
A little bit of a bonus on Sunday. 🙂 Finishing up a thought from yesterday. This is the image that inspired yesterday’s Day Poem.
The female Eastern Bluebird is the more
subtle of the sexes (generally true among
birds), not so gaudy blue and rust red as
the male, and in Winter even paler, washed
by the cold to match the season. Still, if you
look closely, there is a fascination in the
way the bright blue peeks out of the plumage
on the wings and back, teases the eye, and
keeps you looking. I wonder if it has that same
effect on the males come breeding season?
Photographically it has an interesting history. I took it at maximum zoom, 600mm equivalent field of view on the Sony Rx10iii. When processing it in Polarr I really like the composition and the feather detail on the bird, but could not crop in enough without loosing too many pixels to get the bird at the scale I wanted. So I saved it, and reopened it in Big Photo, another app for the iPad. Big Photo allows you to resize images up or down, using a variation, I am assuming, of the “genuine fractals” math that produces very satisfying results when you upscale. This is cropped tighter and upscaled to 16 plus megapixels. The result is a “printable” version of the image. It, of course, has been downscaled again for blog and social media display, but I am satisfied with the results. Isn’t technology grand…when it actually works. 🙂