birding – Page 12 – Circadianreflections Blog

Red-tail Hawk with Prey

February 5, 2016February 4, 2016Posted in Bird Photography, birding, Birds, Birds of North America, Birds of Prey, Hawks, PhotographyTagged Bird Photography, Birding, Birds in the Wild, Birds of North America, Birds of Prey, Hawks, Red-tailed Hawk22 Comments

Warning!: Some may find these images too graphic!

While birding a couple of weeks ago in the Sacramento Valley we spotted this Red-tail Hawk having lunch on a levy about 25-30ft away from us. It spotted us too. It didn’t like the way we kept staring while it was trying to eat so…
Red tail Hawk with meal

…it picked up its meal…

Red-tailed Hawk with Prey in Flight

…and flew to a tree stump that offered a bit more privacy.

Red tail with prey on tree stump

We watched it eat for a couple of minutes then slowly drove away leaving it to enjoy its meal.

The second image with the Red-tail in flight has a bit of motion blur. I was hand-holding the lens and not used to its weight and think it was me being a wobbly rather than a slight pan. The eye is pretty sharp, and the blur gives it a sense of movement I like enough to save, and share it.

I was also racked out to 500mm and I didn’t frame up the shot giving the bird enough room to fly out of the frame, so I extended the canvas a bit then added in some of the background to give the bird some room to fly out of the frame, and fix the composition. There’s a learning curve to all new lenses; getting used to the weight, and bulkiness -it’s a chubby lens, and framing with it will be what I strive to master in the coming years.

I liked the lens so much I bought one right after I returned the rental lens.

Nikon D300s| Nikkor 200-500mm VR (rental lens)| Lexar Professional Digital Film| PS CC 2015

More to come…

Ring-necked Pheasants

January 27, 2016January 27, 2016Posted in Bird Photography, birding, Birds of North America, National Wildlife Refuges in California, Photography, Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge, Sacramento Valley, CATagged Bird Photography, Birding, Birds in the Wild, Birds of North America, National Wildlife Refuges, Ring-necked Pheasant, Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge29 Comments

I don’t see these birds too often, and seeing two together last Saturday was very exciting!

Ring-necked Pheasants

It was a challenging image to make. I was in the backseat, the birds were in front of us; we were on an auto-route only in a National Wildlife Refuge, we had to stop a good distance from them to keep them from dashing off too soon, the driver’s mirror was in the way, and the back windows only rolled down halfway or a tad less. Why are manufacturer’s doing that? GRRR!! There should be a way to roll them down completely!

I had removed my shoes earlier to be able to sit with my legs tucked under me to get more height to shoot down on birds that were near the shore edges, or grassy levies and it helped to get me over the challenges of shooting this pair from the car.

The sound of my shutter clicking spooked the pair and off they flew!

I can’t tell you how pleased I am to have one keeper image of the pair together!

Nikon D300s| Nikkor 200-500mm VR| Lexar Professional Digital Film| hand-held from a car| rental lens- san jose camera & video

Anna’s Hummingbird-Female

January 24, 2016January 24, 2016Posted in Anna's Hummingbird, birding, Birds in Flight, Birds in the Wild, Birds of North America, Nikon Lenses, Photography, Santa Clara County BirdingTagged Annas Hummingbird, Birding, Birds in the Wild, Birds of North America, Camera Gear, Nikon AF-S 200-500mm VR, Nikon Lenses, Photography30 Comments

I hired the Nikon AF-S 200-500mm 1:5.6E ED VR lens to try out for the week-end since my old 300mm f4 AF-S ED lens is acting weird, and I’ve always wanted more reach.

I spent all day Saturday out birding using the lens, and several hours on Sunday before having to return it. I hated to part with it! I LIKE IT A LOT!

Anna's Hummingbird

I used it on my Nikon D300s and found the lens very quick to focus with very little hunting even in low contrast areas, and the images have lovely colors, and contrast. The VR was quite snappy and worked very well on the few images I shot hand-held. I won’t be doing that often.

The lens weighs 4.6 pounds so, I used this lens on a tripod with my Wimberley Arca Sidekick Ball to Gimbal Adapter, and let my rig carry the weight, or I shot from the car window using the door frame as my base on the auto-route parts of the refuges I visited.

This little Anna’s Hummingbird feeding on this succulent plant is an image I made this morning. The sky was overcast and gray, and she was in the shade.
Camera Settings: 1/320s| ISO 1000| Manual Priority| Matrix Metering| Single AF

A challenging situation that I think came out well. So, I guess you know I want this lens!

I shot just under 1000 images this week-end and have begun culling them. I’ll be sharing more images as I go through them.

More to come…

Monochrome Madness 2 34/52 Birds

November 25, 2015November 25, 2015Posted in birding, Birds in the Wild, Birds of North America, Black and White Photography, Monochrome Madness2, Nature, Nature Photography, Pacific Flyway, PhotographyTagged Birding, Birds in the Wild, Birds of North America, Black and White Photography, Black-necked Stilts, Long-billed Dowagers, Monochrome Madness 2, Monochrome Madness2, Nature15 Comments

This week’s Monochrome Madness 2 I selected an image from a recent day I spent birding in the Pacific Flyway. The Pacific Flyway is a section of CA. that is part of the Winter migration path used by birds fleeing the cold months in the Winter.

These are Black-necked Stilts, and Long billed Dowagers foraging for food.

MM2 34 of 52 Black Necked Stilts and Long Billed Dowagers

I was trying out the Tamron 150-600mm super telephoto lens this week-end for the extra reach which was nice to have, but I won’t be saying much about the lens because I wasn’t able to use it as much as I had hoped. We had rain come in which kept me indoors the following day instead of out photographing birds. I won’t complain too much since we need all the rain we can get. 🙂

I’m really behind reading blog posts, but am catching up ever so slowly.

Too see all this week’s posts in Leanne Cole’s Monochrome Madness 2 click here

Nikon D700| Tamron 150-600mm| Hoodman Digital Film| CS6 & Silver Efex Pro

More to come…

Monochrome Madness 2 29/52 Peek-a-Boo!

October 20, 2015Posted in birding, Birds in the Wild, Birds of North America, Black and White Photography, Monochrome Madness2, Nikon Gear, Yellow-rumped WarblerTagged Birding, Birds, Birds in the Wild, Birds of North America, Black and White Photography, Monochrome Madness2, Nikon Gear, Yellow-rumped Warbler18 Comments

A shy Yellow-rumped Warbler that was so adorable! Taken while out birding last Saturday morning.

I think my old 300mm f4 is having auto-focus issues again. It has quit auto-focusing a few times lately, so I switched to my D700 camera to test the lens verses camera since my D300s is also long in the tooth I need to go through the process of elimination to be sure it’s the lens and not the camera. While shooting last Saturday my lens stopped auto-focusing, and suddenly my camera settings switched from f5.6 to f22! I turned the camera off and on again and all was well the rest of the morning. That’s a pretty good indication that it’s my lens. It’s pretty old now and was sent in to Nikon in January for auto-focus issues. I’m afraid it may be ready to go back for repairs again. Sadly, it’s not under warranty anymore. Sigh. Reality check! It may be time for a new lens.

My D300s’ flash doesn’t pop up anymore either, and it’s getting near 60,000 shutter clicks. I think it’s rated for 100K. My poor gear. I treat it really well, but use it a lot. I may have to retire my D300s too. That makes me a little sad. They’ve been such good company, and a huge part of my life for many years. Time to start saving big time for their replacements! 🙂

To see the other images posted for this week’s Monochrome Madness2 visit Leanne Cole’s site here.

Nikon 700| AF-S Nikkor 300mm f/4| SanDisk Pro Extreme Digital Film| CS6 & Silver Efex Pro| Tripod

More to come…

Lesser Goldfinch: Female

October 17, 2015October 19, 2015Posted in birding, Birds in the Wild, Birds of North America, Lesser Goldfinch, Santa Clara County BirdingTagged Birding, Birds in the Wild, Birds of North America, Lesser Goldfinch, Santa Clara County Birding, Winter Migration20 Comments

This morning I went back to the reserve where I went a couple of weeks ago; where I saw my first Yellow Warbler hoping to see it again only closer, and longer. I was seeing lots of Sparrows, and Yellow Rumped Warblers, the pair California Towhee’s were present, and so too was the Blue Jay, and a Northern Flicker flew in, but he kept his back to me only giving me side looks. Stuck up bird! 🙂

40 minutes after I arrived a yellow blur caught my eye and there it was! I quickly swung my rig around and fired off 3 rapid bursts. Then the bird was gone.

My first shot caught him landing and was so blurry it was unusable, the middle shot the bird was there, and the 3rd frame…no bird in it at all. I wouldn’t know for sure if I had a keeper image or not until I saw it on my computer. Though it did look promising in playback.

I didn’t see the Yellow Warbler again, and I stayed in the area until well after 9AM when it began to get busy with runners, dog walkers, and Saturday morning strollers.

He’s a beauty. I’ll be heading back over there again soon hoping to see him, and that Northern Flickr again.

Nikon D700| AF-S Nikkor 300mm f/4| SanDisk Extreme Pro Digital Film| CS6

More to come…

Addendum: It’s been brought to my attention that this isn’t a Yellow Warbler after all; it’s a Lesser Goldfinch Female. Thank you https://myrsbytes.wordpress.com/ !

I’ll keep trying to capture that Yellow Warbler, but I’m glad I saw and was able to make an image of this little beauty especially since she didn’t hang around long!

Yellow Warbler

September 27, 2015September 27, 2015Posted in birding, Birds, Birds in the Wild, Birds of North America, Santa Clara County, Warblers, Yellow WarblersTagged Birds in the Wild, Birds of North America, Migrating Birds, Santa Clara County, Yellow Warbler13 Comments

A new Bird added to my “life list”! This little bird was far away and high up in an Eucalyptus tree so, this is a deep crop and not as crisp as I want it to be. I hope to get out here again and get another crack at it for a closer look and better image.

Nikon Df| Nikkor 300mm f4| Hoodman STEEL Ultra High Speed Digital Film| Tripod| CS6

More to come…

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: