Category: Birds

Friday’s Feathered Friends-A Great Day Birding

Posted in Birds, Birds in the Wild, Birds of North America, Friday's Feathered Friends, PhotographyTagged , , , , , , , , , , 49 Comments

Copyright ©2024 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

PLEASE DO NOT USE MY IMAGES WITHOUT EXPRESSED WRITTEN PERMISSION.

Last week I was birding with a group I belong to. We had a very exciting birding day with 66 species sighted. There were lots of great sightings, one was while in a big field in a Washoe Co. in the sagebrush, we saw a Brewer’s Sparrow and I got a few good images. It’s a “lifer” for me. A “lifer” is the first time you’ve ever seen a bird species.

Brewer’s Sparrow Singing its Morning Song

We saw two adult Bald Eagles which was exciting because one flew onto a telephone pole carrying food of some sort and started eating. Then we heard another Eagle call out and fly into the scene ready to attack from behind!

It tried to steal the food of the BE on the pole. The BE with the food took its prey and flew over to a nearby telephone pole and carried on eating while the would-be thief sat on top of the pole trying to figure out what went wrong and why he now had control of the pole but no food. 😂

In three images: The approach, The Attack, and the would-be thief flying off several minutes later very disappointed.  I was too far away from the poles to get good images, but they’re keepers and good enough to tell the story with.  

Incoming attack from behind
The Attack, and Get-away.

The Would-be thief flyby was better as I had moved closer by then. 

American Bald Eagle in Flight

Some other cool birds I saw and photographed were:

Lark Sparrow in Flight
Sage Thrasher Perched
Black-billed Magpie with Blue reflected in its eye
Marsh Wren-The Poser

I don’t have any cool bird fun facts for you today as the post would be too long. It’s already longer than my usual post.

FYI, I will be late getting back to you on the comments but, I will get to them.

I hope you all have a great week-end!

Nikon D850|Nikkor 500mm PF-e| PS CC 25.7.0

more to come…

Whatever Weds. House Finch

Posted in Backyard Birding, Birds, Birds in the WildTagged , , , , , 50 Comments

Copyright ©2023 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 

PLEASE DO NOT USE MY IMAGES WITHOUT EXPRESSED WRITTEN PERMISSION.

I’ve been MIA again and I’ll probably be on and off again for awhile. A family member is having some medical issues we’re working through.

Copyright ©2023 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 

PLEASE DO NOT USE MY IMAGES WITHOUT EXPRESSED WRITTEN PERMISSION.

House Finch Male

I’ll catch up with you all soon. Stay well!

Fuji X-T3| Fujinon 100-400mm| PS CC 24.6

more to come…

Friday’s Feathered Friends-Northern Cardinal Male

Posted in Bird Photography, birding, Birds, Friday's Feathered Friends, Fuji X-T3Tagged , , , , , , , 61 Comments

Copyright ©2022 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. DO NOT USE MY IMAGES WITHOUT EXPRESSED WRITTEN PERMISSION!

Hello! I’m back from taking a short blogging break. I have a few exciting things to share but, I haven’t been able to turn my mind to writing about them or processing my images yet. When I got home from my latest trip I came home to find #1 Grandson here for a summer visit!! He’s staying until next week then we’ll take him home. His school resumes in late August! It seems like summer is going by too fast. Already it’s dark here by 8:30 P.M.!

I’m so far behind processing and sharing images I fear I’ll never catch up, but let’s go back to my trip to Illinois which was in July this year. The day after my son’s wedding I went birding and He-Man came along for the walk, while we were at The Little Red Schoolhouse Nature Center I ran into a birder and we got to chatting about birds we’d each seen so far that morning, and I asked him if he’d seen any Northern Cardinals in the area and he said he had just up the trail!! We were off on the hunt. It wasn’t long too long after that I saw a red streak fly by in the trees ahead. I raced forward, He-Man raced forward as now he too was excited and on the hunt!! I saw it dive into the bushes but, couldn’t see it then suddenly it flew up to a dead tree snag and perched!!!

Northern Cardinal-Male

I’ve been dreaming of seeing this bird for what seems my whole life…more so since I started birding more seriously in 2010. Can you see me doing my happy dance? 💃💃 I still am so excited to have finally see this beautiful bird! One day I hope to see the Female so that’s still on my list.

Northern Cardinal-Male

I saw one other “Lifer” here at this Nature Center that I’ll be sharing soon, and I’ll be telling you all about my trip to Wyoming where I met up with Janet from This, That, and the Other Thing!!

I hope this finds you all well, you have a wonderful week-end!

Fuji X-T3| Fujinon 100-400mm @ 400mm| PS CC 23.4.2

more to come…

Catching the Red-eye

Posted in Bird Photogaphy, Birds, Birds of North AmericaTagged , , , , 38 Comments

Copyright ©2020 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Eared-Grebe

This is a Breeding adult which you can easily ID by the fan of golden feathers at the “ear”. This image is from early spring where I spied it swimming in one of the ponds at the golf course where we live.

Fun fact- Grebes have lobed rather than fully webbed feet that sit at the rear of their body.

Fuji X-T3| Fujinon XF 100-400mm@400mm| PS CC 21.2.1

more to come…

Not a Wordless Wednesday- Birds

Posted in Birds, PhotographyTagged , , , , , , 65 Comments

Copyright ©2020 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

I have been struggling with the weight of the Nikkor 200-500mm plus my tripod for sometime-well since moving here actually. Birding here requires more walking or it seems that way to me, so I decided to go to a lighter system for birding and wildlife.

I switched from my long-loved system too. I bought a Fuji X-T3 and their 100-400mm lens. I’m gaining some on the wide end, but losing some distance which I hope I don’t feel too much since the Fuji is an APS-C cropped sensor camera.

A simplified definition of Full-Frame and cropped sensor cameras-  A Full-frame sensor has the same size dimensions of a 35mm film format. That’s long been the standard in film size. A cropped sensor is a cropped or smaller sensor size than 35mm film format.

Where you see the difference in an image is on a Full-Frame camera the area of view is wider than a cropped sensor, and the cropped sensor camera’s area of view is cropped in for a tighter view.  So, and 50mm lens on a full-frame camera’s area of view is 50mm, but on a cropped sensor camera with a 1.5x crop the area of view is about 75mm.  Wildlife and birders love APS-C or crop sensor cameras because of that added reach from the multiplier gain.  It’s from that gain I’m hoping I don’t miss the 500mm end of my heavy 200-500mm lens.  Clear as mud?  It makes my head spin sometimes!

On the weight side. I’ve shed half the weight of what I was carrying.  Nikon kit w/tripod = 11.01 pounds. Fuji kit= 4.22 pounds! Now, instead of needing the tripod to make the shot and improve my keeper rate and that added 4 pounds of weight I can leave it behind and shoot hand-held with the new kit, and be a lot quicker. That’s the plan anyway. 😀

It’s a whole new system that is going to take a while to get comfortable with after 12 years of shooting Nikon, but I am not ditching Nikon completely. I’m keeping my Full-frame cameras and several lenses as they have a place in my bag and photography needs.

I’ll stop talking, and show you an image I made with the new camera and one with my Panasonic Lumix FZ200 from a few weeks ago. FYI- When #1 Grandson heard I bought a new camera he asked for my Lumix FZ200. How cool is that! 😍

Fuji X-T3 w/Fujinon XF 100-400mm

House Finch

Panasonic Lumix FZ200 Mom and Dad American Bald Eagles.

American Bald Eagle Pair

Plus one more! iPhone 7 Plus- We’ve been painting birds for several weeks in my Watercolor class. Here’s the last one I finished.  M. Graham watercolor on Canson 140 lb. watercolor paper.

Rooster_198CC240-54E4-4CD1-9795-776A44B43BBA

 

I hope you all have a wonderful week, and the load you carry this week isn’t a heavy one!

more to come…