If you have been following you will realize that I have been working through my images from the St. Augustine Alligator Farm rookery, one species at a time over the past few days. But today is songbirdsaturday over on Google+ and in honor of that we will migrate to Magee Marsh in Northern Ohio for a look at the Baltimore Oriole. If the St. Augustine Alligator Farm rookery is the place to photograph nesting waders in spring, then Magee Marsh is the place to photograph warblers and other migrating passerines in spring. I went almost directly (2 days at home) from Northern Florida to Northern Ohio…from shooting from the boardwalk at STAAF to shooting from the boardwalk at Magee Marsh. There the similarity ends. The birds at the rookery are nesting. The birds at Magee Marsh are feeding on their way north. The birds at the rookery are big and still. The birds at Magee Marsh are small and active. The birds at the rookery are mostly right out in plain site. The birds at Magee Marsh are hidden deeply in foliage (especially this year when the trees leaved out early). While almost anyone would admit that shooting birds at the rookery is easy…shooting birds at Magee Marsh presents a much higher challenge.

Warblers are the star of the show…up to 30 species can be seen on any given day…but larger passerines like the Baltimore Oriole here also pass through in great numbers.

They sing loudly, so they are easy to find…not so easy to get in the frame though.

Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.  1) 840mm equivalent field of view, f5.8 @ 1/320th @ ISO 200. 2) 840mm, f5.8 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 100. 3) 840mm, f5.8 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 320. 4) 840mm, f5.8 @ 1/400th @ ISO 200.

Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.