Both parents bring food to the offspring in the nest box. Here is the female with a caterpillar in its beak, that will of course not become a beautiful butterfly but serves an important part in our nature.
When my photography friend Kevin called last weekend and invited me for a photo opportunity on his property for this week, I got excited. He is an expert on building nest boxes for blue birds and he is part of a group that maintains many of them on public land throughout the season. There are at least a couple in his yard and in one of them is a pair of Eastern Bluebirds that feeds the second brood this year. Kevin placed some really good perches near the nest box.
The male Eastern Blue bird on a barbed wire just below the nest box.
Why is that important? Most birds don’t approach their nest with food in their bill right away. They perch nearby and make sure no predator is around and probably other reasons as well. The bluebirds take sometimes several minutes before they enter the box with the snack they found. This what makes it a really great photo opportunity for us wildlife photographers. We have done this kind of shooting a couple years ago and before I met with Kevin this time, I looked at my old images to see what can be done better. You have to stay away from the nest site in order not to disturb the birds and too far of a distance is a problem you have to deal with. My solution was to employ the SIGMA 1.4 teleconverter with the SIGMA 150-600. This makes it an 850 mm focal length and if the camera is set to DX-mode (half size sensor) you have the equivalent of 1275mm. If the bird is still too small in the frame, well, you have to find a way to get closer without disturbing them.
To make that long story short, I had a great time. Dealing with the previous mentioned focal length isn’t easy but I have been pleased with the “keeper rate” a couple evenings ago. So how to select the photos that have the best impact? Sharpness is mandatory, and if exposure is right, it boils down to look for the gesture you like the most. And that’s what I just did.
This is a juvenile Eastern Bluebird from the first brood earlier this season, returning to the perch near the nest box. The parents seem still to feed their offspring after they left the nest.