Copyright ©2017 Deborah M. Zajac ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Meadowlark Western – Male
Nikon D700| Nikkor 200-500mm| Lexar Professional Digital Film| PS CC 2017
More to come…
W.W. 3/52 I’ve got a song!
Category: Bird Photography
Wordless Wednesday 2/52: Psst!
Copyright ©2017 Deborah M. Zajac ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Northern Pintail-pair
Nikon D300s| 80-200mm @200mm + Tamron 1.4x TC| SanDisk Digital Film| Image made in 2011| PS CC 2017
More to come…
Belted Kingfisher-Female
Copyright ©2016 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
After several years of trying to get a decent image of a Belted Kingfisher I finally got one yesterday while out birding with Gordon and other friends in the Pacific Flyway. I was birding in the refuge rich area north of Sacramento, CA. They asked me to show them around the place and I was eager and happy to do it.
I’m sure Gordon will share many of his images too.
It was an amazing day of birding. We saw so many great birds. Most notable were the Belted Kingfisher, a Bald Eagle, American Bittern, Ring-necked Pheasants, Hawks, Falcon, Ibis, thousands of Snow Geese, some White Fronted Geese, northern pintails, shovelers, Egrets, Blue Herons, Night Herons, Sparrows, Wrens, Goldfinches, Hummingbirds, Warblers, maybe a Thrush of some sort. Need to work on getting an ID on it.
There were quite a few more types of birds seen. We even saw some other wildlife; skunk, deer, and hares, but for me getting this image means no more agonizing over all the butt shots, missed shots, blurry in flight shots, and how very skittish they are! 🙂 I finally got the shot!! 🙂
This one was quite content to sit on this branch looking at the pond below her while keeping an eye on us too. It was a gift!
Can you see me doing my “happy dance”? Yeah, I’m still dancing. 🙂 We had a GREAT day of birding.
Nikon D700| Nikkor 200-500mm| Lexar Professional Digital Film| PS CC 2017
More to come.
Northern Mockingbird
Copyright ©2016 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Look at that eye! Really not liking me and my camera clicking away. They are characters Northern Mockingbirds.
They mimic other birds. There’s one in my neighborhood that mimics a car alarm. Really!
They’re fiercely territorial. I’ve witnessed a Northern Mockingbird dive-bombing a cat trying to nap in the sun more times than I care to count. The cat just flinched and went back to its nap. REALLY? Why didn’t the cat strike out and eat that bird? Cats eat birds! The Northern Mockingbird must have more power than a cat!
When this one grew tired of my clicking it flew away. Leaving me nothing to photograph. Sigh. It’s a cunning bird for sure!
Nikon D700| Nikkor 200-500mm| Lexar Professional Digital Film| PS CC 2017
More to come…
The Look
Copyright ©2016 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
I’m not sure if this is a Sharp-shinned Hawk, or a Cooper’s Hawk, or something else all together, but I’m leaning towards a Sharp-shinned because of its long legs, overall size, and notched tail feathers.
It wasn’t happy about getting its picture taken. He was on a post in an irrigation canal probably hoping for a fish dinner. 🙂
If you know what species it is I’d love to hear from you!
Nikon D700| Nikkor 200-500mm| Lexar Professional Digital Film
More to come…
Clark’s Grebes
Copyright ©2016 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
I spent the week-end with old friends Theresa, Dali, and Alex birding up in Clear Lake. We went to see Grebes, we hoped dancing on the water.
We booked a boat with the same tour group we used last year Eyes of the Wild with Faith as our Captain. You can read that post here.
We booked early and Faith kept us abreast of the Grebe situation on the lake on and off up until our booking day. Last week she sent me a text message saying that courting had really slowed down, but she had a surprise. Babies were early and she’d found several pair of Grebes with babies! Did we still want to come up?
Did we still want to come up? OF COURSE WE DID! We’d go to see the chicks alone! We had hoped to get up there again last summer to see Grebe chicks, but there was a huge fire, the drought, add to that predators, well, it all added up to a low number of Grebes and not too many babies so, we didn’t go back up last year. We went this time!
Here’s my favorite image today of the babies and their parents.
Dad had brought the fish, made a perfect transfer of it to Mom, and the chicks were out and exposed from their Mom’s wings peeping their heads off to get that fish! The morning light was lovely, and I managed to keep the shot in focus and made before the boat moved up or down with a swell!
This was such an exciting, wonderful, beautiful sight to see!
We also saw a few dances. We saw Osprey pairs with chicks, and a really pretty sunset among the most notable things we saw this past week-end.
I came home with 1700 images to cull. I’ve made my first pass and deleted about 400 already. I’ll try to break up the posts so I don’t bore you to death with images of Grebes all the time. 🙂
Nikon D700| Nikkor 200-500mm| SunDisk Digital Film|
More to come…
California Thrasher II
Copyright ©2016 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Back in March while birding and photographing flowers in Santa Cruz, CA I was thrilled to hear and see a California Thrasher for a minute…long enough to get a few images, before I spooked it trying to get a little bit closer to it. You can see that post here.
I’ve been wishing to see one again, and be closer to it. Well, on Sunday I got my wish while birding down in the southern end of Santa Clara Valley.
He was singing his little heart out!
He sang for 10 minutes. Then he stopped, gave himself a real good shake…
…took a breath, and began singing again!
Two little Bushtits flew into the bush beside him and began talking to him,
so he turned around to sing to them.
There were a few more notes sung by the Bushtits to the Thrasher then they flew off. It happened so fast I was only able to get 3 shots of the Bushtits. The image isn’t great. My lens kept wanting to focus on the branches in front of the bird rather than the little bird.
Then the Thrasher flew north. What a treat that was to hear him singing for so long. It was the highlight of my morning.
The California Thrasher is found in California and Baja California.
I found some California Thrasher Song sound files over on allaboutbirds.com that you can listen to here.
Nikon D700| Nikkor 200-500mm| Lexar Professional Digital Film| PS CC 2015
More to come…
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