NATURE CLICKS #280 - YELLOW WARBLER


Finally I made my first photo of a warbler this year. During migration time in May we have not seen any of them in our valley here, although I paid utmost attention to any movement in the woods. Spring 2014 was so much better and I don’t know really why. However, this evening I went to the Mines of Spain, the wooded area south of Dubuque, Iowa, and tried my luck there. Sure enough I saw an American Redstart and found this beautiful Yellow Warbler under the canopy of the trees in an area with heavy brush thicket. Using the tripod is not very practical between the bushes and trees and so I handheld the D750 with the Sigma 50-500 and SB800 speed light attached. The warbler changed location every few seconds and it is a lot easier to follow the bird without the tripod. Working this way requires some faster shutter speed and I had the ISO pumped up to 1000 to make the click at 1/320s, f/8. The flash was used very subtle, just enough to make the colors of the warbler pop.