Birding – Page 18 – Circadianreflections Blog

Northern Flicker-Male

April 14, 2014April 14, 2014Posted in Birds, California, Nature, Photography, WildlifeTagged Birding, California Birds, Northern Flicker-Male, San Benito County, San Jose Nature Photographer2 Comments

I’m so excited-this is the best Male-Northern Flickr image I’ve made to date! It is also the closest I’ve ever been to a Northern Flicker.
My friend Rainey and I had been shooting wildflowers up in the mountains when we were descending we spotted him pecking at the road. He flew up to this perch and stayed just long enough to capture two frames. Both were a bit over exposed, and not as sharp as I would have liked as I was shooting on the fly from the passenger side of the car through the window. Thankfully Adobe Camera Raw, and a bit of sharpening in Photoshop saved the image.

I am not happy about cutting off his tail though. So, while I’m happy to have made this image there is a better one still to be made. The chase continues. 🙂

Prairie Falcon

January 21, 2014January 21, 2014Posted in Birds, California, Nature, Photography, WildlifeTagged Birding, Birds in the Wild, Photography, San Jose Nature Photographer7 Comments

Saturday last I had the pleasure of Dali, and Rainey’s company for a few hours of birding.

We headed south about an hour from home hoping to spot Golden Eagles. We hadn’t gone too far down a country road when I spied a falcon on top of a telephone pole. I quickly pulled over and turned off the car so we could take photos without the vibration of the engine.

None of us was positive about the bird’s ID at the time, but we were excited because we knew it was a bird we hadn’t seen before. Here’s how it looked when I first saw it.

With both Rainey and I clicking away we spooked it and he planned to flee the scene.

Ready for Take Off!

Take off!

In Flight—

I was thrilled when I uploaded the images to find I had captured the whole sequence of flight on film. Upon closer look I thought this might have been a juvenile Kestrel, but Rainey confirmed it is a Prairie Falcon. A first for the 3 of us.

We also saw two Golden Eagles, which were flying away from us too fast to capture a photo. Later we saw a Bald Eagle sitting in a tree. Dali got the POD (Picture of the Day) as he got a good image of it. I wish I could show you, but at the time of this writing he hadn’t posted it yet. I was too slow to get the car parked, and out so, I missed the shot. When it got spooked and took flight another Bald Eagle took off with it. We hadn’t seen that one due to tree cover.

We saw this Loggerhead Shrike sitting on a wire. We hoped it would spot something good to eat and dive for it, alas it never did.

We also saw this pretty little Savannah Sparrow—X Marks the Spot:

Savannah Sparrow: Closer Look–

Other birds of note that we saw were: A Red-bellied Sapsucker, Yellow-billed Magpie; (see Rainey’s image here) White Crown Sparrows, Acorn Woodpeckers, and Red-tail Hawks.

It was good birding. I hope to get out there again this week-end. With luck I’ll see the Eagles again.

All photos were taken with a Nikon D300s and AF-S Nikkor 300mm f/4 lens

Bushtit

November 21, 2013November 21, 2013Posted in Birds, California, Copyright 2013 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved., PhotographyTagged Birding, Gear, Photography, San Jose Nature PhotographerLeave a comment

Bushtit, originally uploaded by CircadianReflections Photography.

Via Flickr:
Copyright © 2013 Deborah M Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

Testing the Nikkor 14E II Teleconverter that I purchased. It isn’t Auto-focusing on either the D700 or D300s with my AF-S 300mm f/4 lens. Once in awhile when manual focusing the AF would work, but not consistently like it should have. This was manually focused. It looks like this unit is a lemon. I’m sending it back for an exchange. I’m very disappointed.
I’m not good at manually focusing on birds. I don’t have many keepers from the hour and half I was out testing this TC today. In the meantime my Tamron TC will have to do.

Least Sandpiper

November 8, 2013November 8, 2013Posted in Birds, California, Copyright 2013 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved., Nature, Photography, TravelTagged Birding, CA, Lodi, San Jose Nature Photographer, Sandhill Crane Festival, TravelLeave a comment

These little guys are so cute. I took this last week-end while up north in Lodi for the Sandhill Crane Festival.

Nikon D300s| Nikkor 80-400mm G| Hand-held

Bushtit

October 19, 2013October 19, 2013Posted in Birds, California, Copyright 2013 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved., Nature, Photography, WildlifeTagged Birding, Nikon User, San Jose Nature Photographer, WildlifeLeave a comment

This is my first Bushtit capture. These little birds usually stay deep in the branches and are quite flitty. This morning while birding with Rainey and Dali we saw quite a few on two bushes so, I hung out hoping I’d be quick enough to capture a photo of one if it happened to venture out onto an exposed branch.

This was a great morning. Birds of note that we saw are a Merlin having breakfast, Thompson Warblers, Vireos, Hummingbirds, Ruddy Ducks, Acorn Woodpeckers, a few Cedar Waxwings, and the Mandarin Duck.

Note: This was shot at a very high ISO 1250 to stop action and blur so there is quite a bit of noise even after using a noise reduction tool. I’d rather have noise than a blurry photo. I delete the blurry ones.

Nikon D300s| Nikkor 300mm f/4

Sun salutation

October 16, 2013October 16, 2013Posted in Birds, California, Copyright 2013 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved., Nature, Nikon, Photography, WildlifeTagged Birding, Birds in the Wild, Holidays; Valentine's Day; Nature; Wildlife; Ducks; Hearts; Nikon; Nikkor; Photography, San Jose California Nature PhotographyLeave a comment

Taken last week-end while looking for Cedar Waxwings. He was a delightful pause along the journey.

Tufted Puffin-Adult Summer

July 29, 2013July 29, 2013Posted in Birds, California, Copyright 2013 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved., Nature, Nikon, Photography, Travel, WildlifeTagged Alvaro's Adventures, Birding, Farallon Islands, Nikon D700, San Jose California Nature Photography, Tufted PuffinLeave a comment

This is the first time I’ve ever seen a Puffin in the wild! I went on a Birding trip out to the Farallon Islands 27 miles outside of San Francisco in the Pacific Ocean. We weren’t allowed on the island-only Biologists are allowed on the island, but we cruised all around them and then we went out to deeper water from there. Along the way we saw 3 Tufted Puffin.

There are only 50 pairs of Tufted Puffin nesting on the Islands at this time, but there thousands of gulls, Common Murre’s, lots of Cormorants, seals, sea lions, and one lone Gannet. In deeper water we saw Hump Back whales, and a Blue Whale too.

I saw so many new birds on the trip, and the one bird I hoped to see was the Tufted Puffin. I went home a happy sailor just seeing one. I hoped I got one good shot.
The weather was overcast, and to get the shutter speed I needed I really pushed the ISO. Shooting from the boat was challenging. I would focus on a bird then the boat would go up or down and my focus point was off. I didn’t start to get the rhythm of the sea til near the end of the day, and then there wasn’t much to see as we were pushing hard to get back.
We were out at sea for nearly 9 hours. I went with Alvaro’s Adventures out of Half Moon Bay. I would definitely go again.

Alvaro is a Biologist, and he had two expert birders along for the tour. One was on the starboard side calling out birds and mammals, and the other on the Port side doing the same. I don’t think we missed anything flying or swimming on our route.

I’ve not been able to spend much time online lately. #1 Grandson is very busy and takes all my attention these days. I’m looking at your photos when I can and I’ll catch up soon!

Bird of the Week: Tufted Puffin (valleybirder.wordpress.com)

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