So after many posts about travel, here is a post from my own backyard. 🙂
We have two bird feeders that have been getting a lot of attention, both from the birds and us. When we have some time to relax and the sun is shining nicely (it didn’t happen very often at the same time this winter), our backyard is a favorite place to do both. From the quantity of pictures, one might think I’m stalking the birds. From the evidence of extreme skittish-ness in the cardinals, I think they’d agree. However, the number of cardinals has risen in the last week or 2 and they’re much less frightened. Guess they’re fattening up before heading north.
[lighting: overcast]
Because I have pictures for so many different days, this could be a lesson in lighting and how it affects the warmth/coolness of the photo.
The finches are bossy little things and are often scolding at each other.
[lighting: late afternoon sun]
This is a bird flounce if ever I saw one!
In yo face!
They eat about 10% of the seed and the rest gets tossed to the ground.
[lighting: shade]
I had moved the feeders close to my bedroom window so I could shoot out of it without them seeing me. It worked sometimes.
I’m nowhere near a bird photography expert, but they love to have something to land on. In the next shot, I had raked together some pine needles, pine cones and branches to burn in the fire ring. It made a nice landing spot. Our grass is not very green yet but it’s greening up fast.
[lighting:overcast]
See the bird below with a little red color, Lois thinks it’s a finch. This was the only time I saw it. It looked funny, like there was something wrong with it.
[lighting: late afternoon sun]
We have this post that Lois put the decorative spool thingy on and planted a vine, the name escapes me at the moment, and the land there often. Makes a beautiful picture!
[lighting: female cardinal in shade, late afternoon sun in background]
[lighting: early afternoon sun]
[lighting: midday overcast – you can see filtered light hitting the leaves]
Wow! That’s quite a difference in those last 3 shots!
Same lighting as 2 shots ^^ but the finches barely stand out.
A birdbath is another place I can occasionally catch them. In this case, they’re here because my presence disturbed them from eating and they’re to wary to back to it.
[lighting: birds in shade, late afternoon sun on background]
The male looks rather upset. It’s the same male as the shot above this. His feathers fluffed up give him a different look.
Can you find all of the cardinals. I was this from some distance and only saw the males. Once I zoomed it in, I saw the females as well.
There are 6 birds in case you’re wondering.
There’s a little rain falling in the next one.
Tuesday night I was catching some late evening (overcast) light and noticed a different bird come flying in.
To the naked eye it looked like a robin but acted rather aggressive. A couple of seconds later, a second bird flew in and then I thought I knew what they were.
A pair of Baltimore Orioles migrating north. However, going by pictures here, I’d say they are Orchard Orioles. But, what I thought was the female doesn’t look anything like the female on that sight. It was getting close to dark so it was hard to get a good shot. Plus, they only stuck around a few minutes and we didn’t see them again.
So what are some hobbies/ways of relaxing you enjoy?