I’m still very happy about the opportunity to have a Sharp-shinned Hawk in front of the camera. This photo was made shortly after the bird landed in the first tree. No, I haven’t been that close. the picture I show here is cropped. It is sharp enough to do it for the web, however, printing the image on paper in a larger size may not turn out that well. The distance to the bird was about the same like the one in my previous post. I haven’t seen the hawk since but I’m sure it is still around…
There has been a story about this hawk already before I even was able to make this photo. During the last couple weeks two of our Downy Woodpeckers were the victims of a deadly attack by this accipiter. I witnessed one of them but couldn’t identify the raptor. The remains of another little Downy told me that the hawk had struck again this week. Sharp-shinned Hawks feed on smaller birds and are attracted to bird feeders if they are visible from the air. Well, we offer them paradise here… ;-)
Today it paid back that I have the camera ready to shoot most of the time. I saw the bird flying into our front yard while sitting at my desk. It landed on a low branch but I had a hard time to focus because it showed me its back and there were little branches that obstructed the view. I took several shots, more for identification than anything else. Suddenly the hawk flew up again to a taller tree. I run upstairs back to my office window. And there it was! The Sharp-shinned Hawk sat on a branch just across from the window and showed me its front side in best light.
I like to mention that there is of course a little doubt about the identification of this bird. The Cooper’s Hawk is very similar and I read even experienced birders may have problems to identify them sometimes. There is great variation in plumage and in size for these two species. The tail of this hawk is more square while the the tail of the Cooper’s Hawk has more rounded tips. A couple other field marks (shape of the head and leg size) make me believe that we see the Sharp-shinned Hawk. It would be nice if a more experienced birder could give me their opinion.
This was the first time that I was able to make an image of the Sharp-shinned Hawk and the first “first sighting” in 2014. I’m very happy about this photo and I hope you enjoy it too.
Four deer passed through our front yard at 5:54PM today. No, the deer doesn’t show up earlier during the evening but the sun is much longer above the horizon with the approach of mid February. This is an environmental photo I had in mind for several years already and finally had my chance to make it today. The sun paints beautifully on the head and legs of the animal and its reflection on the snow leaves no doubt about the late hour of the day. It isn’t a perfect photo, it has a certain softness due to the fact that I had to make this photo behind a closed window because I discovered the group of White-tailed Deer too late. If I would have opened the window, they would had run away and my chance to make the click would have evaporated. It is not easy to isolate a deer from the bird feeders or bushes in our front yard but here pretty much everything came together well, the light, the background, and the gesture of the deer…
Everyone has their way to battle the cold temperatures and to stay warm during the winter. This Fox Sparrow was captured while standing on one leg for a moment and having the other one in its feathers. The Fox Sparrow is normally in our area only during migration, according to my books, but it was already the second time that we have seen this species during the winter. I wrote about the first encounter in “Nature clicks #133”. It is a chunky little bird, bigger than other sparrows. It was actually a couple of them that we saw during the last few days and I’m sure our feeders and water supply play a role for this observation.
As you can see by the golden background, the White-tailed Deer showed up in our yard during the last minutes before the sun finally disappeared behind the ridge yesterday evening. It is a doe with two fawns that hang around in the neighborhood and try desperately to find something to eat. Our bird feeders in the front yard are often on their route. The amount of snow we have on the ground makes it really difficult for them to find anything. This fawn was looking after its mother who had already moved on.
This shot wasn’t easy to make. Exposure was already down to 1/60s at ISO 400 and I didn’t have the speed light with the soft box ready to use when I saw them. In the original image I can see that is not tack sharp but I really like the background for this photo that helps to tell the story.
I think I stayed a little more on the conservative side when I told you a few days ago that we have a conclave of Northern Cardinals of about 15 birds here in the woods around our house. They are here now most of the day and I had the chance to count them again. Now I would say the flock has at least two dozen birds that stay together during the winter. I hope you don’t mind that I show you a few more images of these great looking birds. They will separate soon and it is hard to make a click that close during the summer (oh, I will try anyway).
Here is “The Punk”. The photo was made yesterday during the big gathering in the evening and the wind was still blowing after we had some more snow during the day.
This female had checked in at our “balcony studio” and used the Red Cedar branch to wait for a free spot at the bird feeder.
The last image is a day older than the other two but it was made also a few minutes after 6pm. The snow on the slope in front of our house made for a nice background and bounces the indirect flash light nicely onto the cardinal.
The last birds that we see here every day are the Northern Cardinals. They seem to prefer the very early morning and early evenings for their visits. We have a conclave of about 15 cardinals who stay together during the winter. The daylight lasts already a bit longer than during the winter solstice a month ago. This allows to make a few clicks after work without relying totally on the flash light. However, I use the speed light as a fill flash to bring out the colors. This photo was made at 5:30PM today. As you can see there is still some daylight coming through the woods in the back and from the side, making for a nice separation of the bird from the background. The branch from a Red Cedar is part of our “balcony studio”. I think it worked for this photo… :-)
Today we got reminded that we are still in the middle of winter. Lots of snow fell during the morning until noon. Well, I call it ideal weather for bird photography! The snow drives the birds to the feeders and water sources that we provide for our feathered friends. Snow flakes create always a nice dynamic in the photo and help to tell the story about survival in harsh weather conditions and this is why I like this kind of weather for shooting birds around the house.
The lack of light (strong overcast) was compensated by using the Nikon SB600 speed light and my self-made soft box. If you like to see how that light enhancer looks like, click on the link HERE , and one of my older posts will open in a new window. The softened light from the flash brings out the colors in the birds. While this works well you still don’t want too much reflection of the flash in the frame. I set the camera to manual mode (today I used most of the time 1/250s, f/8) and also reduce the output of the flash by -2/3. The shooting distance was about 3 meters (10 feet). After a few test shots it is not difficult to find the settings that you may like for your photo. I prefer to use the manual mode for this kind of shooting because it gives me consistent results over a period of time. If the light changes on a larger scale I change the settings of the flash light accordingly.
If you like to try something similar at your bird feeders but do not have a soft box, just take a white napkin and put it over your flash. This is not perfect (neither is my self-made soft box!) but it will give you some results you may like much better than just from the naked speed light. It is a starting point, give it a try!
Post processing for these images was very simple. I cloned out a few snow flakes that reflected the flash light a little too much. Other than that, just the usual tweaks in the basic menu of Adobe Lightroom, RAW sharpening, a little noise reduction, and finally some Highpass sharpening in Photoshop of the critical parts (eyes, maybe feet or some feathers). After three minutes the photo is ready to be saved as a jpeg file as you can see it here in the blog.
I hope my little description of today’s bird shooting may encourage you to try something similar at your own bird feeders, or even better out in the woods. Stay warm and enjoy the rest of your weekend!
My job kept me at the desk almost the whole week but I couldn’t resist to grab the camera and make this photo out of the window in my home office. This Mourning Dove enjoyed a few warm rays of the sun on a branch across the yard at the edge of our timber. This is as close as I can get without cropping the heck out of the photo, something I try more and more to refrain from in my wildlife photography. This one is nevertheless slightly cropped in order to make the borders a little less busy.
Why will this photo not make it into my galleries, even if it is sharp and the light is really lovely? Well, it is the background that sucks. It is way too busy. You may also notice that a branch comes right out of the bird’s head. Shooting from a window does not leave much room for a different position. It is the hint of warm light in combination with the cold snow in the background that tells a story about survival in the winter here in Iowa. It is the visual story telling that I saw in this scene and that made me grab the camera and make the click. If this would be a bird I have never photographed before, I would probably introduce it in my Iowa wildlife gallery. But we have the Mourning Doves here all the time and the picture that will replace the existing one has to be better in any way.
The New Year started the same way as the old one ended, with lots of snow coming down and cold temperatures. I had a technical glitch with some software yesterday, so this post is actually a day late. I like to thank all of you who followed my blog in 2013 or just stopped here once in a while. Thank you for your encouragement, your comments, and your “Likes” at Facebook or in my other galleries. I’m happy you are out there and inspire me to keep writing this blog. Our wildlife and environment needs utmost attention in a world of unlimited exploitation of resources and I hope this blog can still create some awareness for the beauty that is out there and that needs our protection. Joan and I wish all of you a wonderful year 2014.
