Female White-breasted Nuthatch
After a few days with nothing but a cloudy and gray sky we are all happy to see the sun again for a while. The last day in January had plenty of it although it feels strange not having any snow on the ground. We humans are not the only creatures longing for light and warmth during winter. This female nuthatch usually hardly ever stops moving around, but it found a spot to sit down for a while, close the eyes, and take a little ”power nap” in the sun.
Female Red-bellied Woodpecker
You haven’t seen much new here in the blog lately beside my ”RETROSPECT 2023” blog posts, but today I had to take the camera out on the porch for some exciting bird photography. It is still warm, way to warm for this time of the year, but late morning it started snowing. The roads still remained clear but in the trees the white stuff accumulated a little bit. After all the gray weather and rain lately, this was a delight today! It also was another chance to work with the new speed light, the Westscott FJ80 II with a dome diffuser attached. As always, shortly after the camera on tripod was in place outside the door, the birds started to return.
The still young oak tree in front of the house, becomes more and more a hub for the birds before they fly over to a feeder. This female is one of three Red-bellied Woodpeckers that have their home somewhere nearby.
Female Downy Woodpecker
I’m trying to find out how many Downy Woodpeckers we actually have here in our woods. So far I have counted 7, but since they move fast between the front and back side of the building, I’m still wondering if there is even a couple more hanging around.
Female White-breasted Nuthatch
A couple of White-breasted Nuthatches are permanent residents up on the bluffs here. This female showed up alone today but quite often we see both birds and sometimes the male is stealing seeds from the female.
I used the Westscott FJ80 II speed light in manual mode for today’s photos. With its big display it’s easy to change the settings, eben without the use of my glasses. I’m very pleased how this new tool in my bag delivers . With the diffusion dome attached you can’t even tell that a speed light was used, since there is hardly any catch light in the bird’s eyes, but the colors of the feathers are revealed gorgeously. This is most prevalent in the photo of the Red-bellied Woodpecker.
As always, I try to tell a story with the photo and today it was all about the snow. To get the trails of snow flakes it takes about 1/60 s to 1/160 s. At that shutter speed not every shot is tack sharp while using a 600 mm focal length. Nevertheless, at the end the old rule applies, if the eye of the bird is not sharp, the picture ends in the virtual trash can, no matter if the snow trails look good or not…
It was ideal weather today for spending some time in the “front yard studio”, with temperatures slightly above freezing. The sun was out and a very thin and hazy layer of clouds acted as a great light diffuser and in addition the snow on the ground worked as an additional light bouncer. I put the 1.4 Teleconverter on the lens and shot almost the whole time at 850 mm focal length. This allowed me to stay under the cover of our porch roof and the birds had less to worry about my presence.
One of the species I wanted to focus on was the White-breasted Nuthatch. The first image was made in the very early afternoon while the nuthatch posed briefly on this cedar stump. This adds some nice color contrast to the white, gray, and black of the bird and the crisp winter light.
Three hours later the setting sun added some warm light to the edge of our woods. It was a perfect setting for the typical “head down” of a White-breasted Nuthatch while moving down a tree trunk.
Nikon Z6II, Nikon FTZ adapter, Sigma 150-600mm / f5-6.3 DG OS HSM S, Sigma APO Teleconverter 1.4x EX DG, Induro GIT 404XL tripod, Induro GHB2 gimbal head, Nikon SB 800 speed light, MAGMOD MagBeam flash extender,
1. photo @ 850 mm, 1/1250 s, f/9, ISO 640
2. photo @ 850 mm, 1/640 s, f/9, ISO 1600
Red-breasted Nuthatch
White-breasted Nuthatch
The Red-breasted Nuthatches are winter guests here in Iowa. We are lucky to see a couple around here since about a month. They are as acrobatic as their cousins, the White-breasted Nuthatches, during their efforts to find food on trees, or like in this photo at a feeder. The white-breasted breeds here and is present all year long. As you know, I do not make a lot of bird images at a bird feeder, but in this matter I wanted to show the difference in size between both species and the raster of a suet feeder is an excellent scale for this purpose. The Red-breasted Nuthatch prefers coniferous forests, which of course they find up north in their breeding range. The larger White-breasted Nuthatch inhabits mixed deciduous and coniferous forests and prefers the presence of oak trees (source: iBird PRO app). They built their nests in dead wood, often higher up in a tree. Well, we have plenty of dead wood around here and so far we have seen every year a successful brood.
Nikon Z6II, Nikon FTZ adapter, Nikon Nikkor AF-S 70-200mm, f/4
White-breasted Nuthatch
A few days ago a hard bump against one of our big windows made me jump out of my office chair and run outside. I knew immediately what happened and found this little female White-breasted Nuthatch unconscious down in the snow. Even though most of our windows are protected with bug screens or have bird protection decals on the glass, it happens from time to time that a bird hits the glass of one of the two big windows that can’t be reached easily and lack protection.
I kept the little guy in my hand and warmed it up for several minutes until she regained consciousness. For a few minutes the bird rested on the front porch where I took the first picture. I was happy to see her flying to my “woodpecker tree”, a dead cedar that holds a bird feeder and is used for yard photography. There she spent another ten minutes before the nuthatch finally returned into the woods.
The size of this White-breasted Nuthatch tells me it is probably one of the juveniles from this year. The older birds are slightly bigger. They don’t migrate and are here all year long. I’m glad it turned out well for the little patient… 😊
White-breasted Nuthatch, Little Maquoketa River Valley, Iowa
Oh, you see some white aside from the bird’s body and between the trees in the background of this photo? You got it! We had our first snow a couple days ago and it took until today to melt it. With the snow came a bunch of Dark-eyed Juncos from the north, who will spend the winter here, and their arrival is always the best indicator that autumn is almost over. It was a gray weekend again and the best I can come up with is this photo of a White-breasted Nuthatch in its typical position on a tree trunk.
White-breasted Nuthatch, Nikon D750, Sigma 150-600mm / f5-6.3 DG OS HSM S ———
I made an overdue update of the firmware for the SIGMA 150-600 Sports lens today. Thanks to the USB dock and optimization software from SIGMA I can customize the lens to my shooting preferences and create two presets for autofocus and optical stabilization (aka vibration reduction), or even correct the focal point if necessary (although I never had to correct the focal point yet). This sounds complicated but is very easy to do. After the presets are created on your computer screen and transmitted to the lens you can choose either customized setting by just flipping a switch on the lens barrel or you can leave it off. For example, I can switch from a more dynamic autofocus and optical lens stabilization that I use quite often during bird photography, where fast movements of the subject are most likely, to a smoother focus and stabilization behavior with slightly better accuracy.
In order to test my new presets I just stepped outside and looked for a bird. The White-breasted Nuthatches are permanent residents here all year long, they are just fun to watch, and seem to be the perfect subject for such a test. It looks like the nuthatch was sitting on this branch forever but this was just a couple seconds that the bird remained in this pose. Their movements are usually fast and erratic, and it is a challenge to get them in focus while handholding the camera with the relatively heavy SIGMA 150-600 Sports lens attached. I liked the focus behavior of the lens before, but after reviewing the first few images, made with new firmware and refined custom settings, I could already tell that the focus speed and accuracy, as well as image stabilization were even better. Don’t take me wrong, I still believe that proper hand holding and constant practice with such a heavy lens are the basics for a sharp image, but it is nice to have confidence about the technical side of the gear. If my photos are out of focus I can only blame the pilot…
Brown Creeper, Little Maquoketa River Valley, Iowa ----------
This photo was on my ‘Most Wanted List’ since a long time. I showed pictures of the Brown Creeper (Certhia americana) before here in the blog but none of them was well crafted (heavily cropped and lack of sharpness). It is not unusual to see them here in our woods but their appearance is almost unpredictable. They fly to the bottom of a tree and spiral upward very quickly while pecking for insects. The Brown Creeper uses its stiff tail for support when climbing. Their curved bill helps them to get the food out of the smallest cracks and from behind the bark. After the bird is done with one tree it hops down to the base of another tree and starts all over again. Here is some trivia, in my home country Germany lives a relative, called the ‘Gartenbaumläufer’ (Certhia brachydactyla). It looks very similar to the American species.
Male White-breasted Nuthatch
While waiting for the appearance of the Brown Creeper another tree climber showed up several times. The White-breasted Nuthatch is a regular visitor here and we can see them all year long. Beside the obvious visual differences between the creeper and the nuthatch, the White-breasted Nuthatch flies to a higher point of the tree and usually hops down the trunk. ‘Nuthatch’ is derived from its habit of placing seeds or nuts in crevices of trees and prying them open with its bill. (source: iBird Pro App)
Red-breasted Nuthatch ------------
We had an extremely mild October and November and I wonder if this is the reason that we see this Red-breasted Nuthatch still in the trees and at our bird feeders. I first saw the bird October, 29th and repeatedly after. It’s cousin, the White-breasted Nuthatch is here all year long. They are slightly bigger than the red-breasted and at the bird feeders the smaller nuthatch seems to avoid its bigger cousins.
White-breasted Nuthatch
White-breasted Nuthatch, Little Maquoketa River Valley, Iowa
This is a picture I wanted to make since a long time. The White-breasted Nuthatch gave me a little bit of time today at our maple in front of the house to shoot a series of pictures. The fill flash is subtle, just enough to emphasize the colors, and except for the second catch light in the bird’s eye, it is not obvious that flash was even used. The nuthatches are permanent residents in our woods here on the bluffs above the Little Maquoketa River Valley.
I used the Nikon D750 with the SIGMA 150-600, f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM Sports Lens for this photo (picture made @ 600 mm, 1/160s, f/6.3, ISO 250). As more I work with the new lens, as more I fall in love with it. My old SIGMA 50-500 delivered sharp images but it was at its best at an aperture of f/8. I’m very impressed how the new 150-600 S performs already at f/6.3, and I already mentioned in my first article about this lens how much better the bokeh of the new lens is. It’s getting gradually warmer here in the next few days and I hope I have some more opportunities to practice with the SIGMA 150-600 S.
Is this a shot I could have made any time during the winter season because the White-breasted Nuthatch is always present here in eastern Iowa? Perhaps, but it is the light and the colors that are different in spring. The gesture of the nuthatch, after going down on a tree trunk, is typical, but still unique. Don’t know any other bird who does it this way…
