MikeandRong

Felt under the weather today so I slept in and only took a few shots. This Nuthatch came in to eat some of the thistle seed this morning. An hour later a nice colored Male Goldfinch showed up too. The sun was real bright at this time of morning and made for some real clear photos.

It's an older neighborhood with very mature trees, and that makes for a real thick canopy of foliage and cover. Lots of Red Tailed Hawks, but too thick for them to do any damage, they stick to the baseball and soccer fields and other more open areas. The Cooper Hawks hit the Doves hard, but again once the trees leaf out they miss more often than not. Have a couple of Perigran Falcons that dive in super fast from the hiding places they have and they usually connect on Doves and Robins (ground feeders). Once the leafs fall though, the Hawks do a real number on the birds and I really slow down the feeding. A Great Horned Owl family nested in the back corner this year and on the morning of July 4th at 3:30am decided to teach the babies to fly. Such a continues ruckus they made I went out and recorded a non-stop almost 4 minute audio of them hooting and screeching and crashing through the branches. A lot of other neighbors feed the birds too, but I try to use a better quality to make sure they will make an appearance.

This is a new Adult Male Goldfinch that I haven't seen before. The white on their shoulder patch and back wings are a little different on each one. This guy has a lot of white, so maybe he is more than a couple of years old. He called a lot and when I heard an anawer I looked up and saw this Female he was calling to. She just jumped off the tree branch and dove headfirst straight to the feeder, only opening her wings to stop.

I think this is the same Red-bellied Woodpecker I saw from Wednesday. You can clearly see in this picture the new red head feathers that are starting to grow in now. When complete he should be a real beauty as he is at least 2 years old now and a really good size.

This Adult Male Goldfinch I have nicknamed BA. The much bigger Male House Sparrow was there first. He (BA) positions himself first and gets a big mouth full of thistle seed. Then he rakes his beak up and across the steel mesh screen making a real loud buzzing noise. It really seems to work as it scares this Sparrow away all bug eyed out, leaving BA to eat all alone in peace.

This yearling Female Cardinal is starting to color up nicely. Neither she or the Female Housefinch would back down and leave, so they both stayed and ended up eating together and not fighting about the food and space.

This yearling Male Hairy Woodpecker would not eat the new suet flavor I had out today. Instead he was going for the assorted nuts that were mixed in this feeder at the bottom. Notice how he uses his strong tail feathers for a brace to lean against things with, almost like having a third leg.

This little Ruby-throated Hummingbird came in when I was sitting on the opposite side from my usual spot. I would have missed these photos if I had not moved, as the feeder would have been in front of him from where he was feeding.

Just caught this Adult Male Cardinal catching what looks like a Katydid. All morning he was in and out of the yard feeding his newly hatched 2nd batch of babies this year.

Saturday morning I changed the suet blocks from peanut butter to nut and berry. This yearling Male Downy Woodpecker just kept on smelling the new odor over and over before starting to take a taste and then eating away on it.

Now compared to a healthy Female Goldfinch, after the sound of the camera shutter if they do not want to be disturbed, they will turn their heads up at you and cross their back tail wings showing off the white edges of their tail feathers. They sure can be fiesty for being such a small bird.

I have a real soft spot for the sick and injured, so I keep 1 feeder in a protected area that lets some of the more nervous birds feed in peace. I have been watching this Female Goldfinch for a couple of weeks now and could only catch a glimpse of her left side face, never long enough or clear enough to verify what I was thinking. Well this evening it is quite clear she was in a fight or flew into something and is blind in her left eye. She is usually nervous and will only feed alone, so I'm glad to see that she is at ease using my safe zone. These 3 photos are all I will take of her while she is there as I do not want to disturb her with any of my movements. In fact, I eased back away and came inside and she is still feeding all alone and undisturbed by any other birds. She looks in good shape otherwise and is eating heartily.

No, the tripod I gave to my daughter to use. There are just too many angles and different views to consider using one. Basic stance is sitting with knees raised and elbows on the lower thighs using a two handed hold. Think of a sitting position while qualifying at 300 yards with a rifle. It's rock steady as long as I control my breathing and heart rate. I use the strap around my neck the same way you would use a rifle sling for added support. At times I will play around with them doing a slow creep in a gillie suit to get an upward shot. But most are just in darker colored drab green and black shirt and pants while sitting on the back deck.

It absolutely poured rain for about 45 minutes this evening and we got a nice rainbow out of it. About 40 minutes later the sun came back out and this Adult Male Cardinal landed right up in front of me soaking wet, and not afraid at all (which for him is unusual). After turning his head left and right to listen, he flew down not 8 feet in front of me along with a Male House Sparrow at the same time. Turns out the rain had knocked a Cicada out of the tree and it was wiggling in the grass at the base of the tree, and they had both seen it. The Cardinal grabbed it away from the Sparrow and flew away with it, the Sparrow looking very disappointed with himself for losing his meal.

What at first looked like a Hummingbird hovering up in the mid-tree level was not at all. This is a Blue-gnat Flycatcher. If you zoom in all the way, you can see the royal silver blue on his back and long tail feathers. These were the best pictures I could get before losing sight of him. Oh well, there's always later and tomorrow.

It's a Nikon D3400 and I'm using a 70-300mm lens. Unless it's really dark I have the best success setting it on automatic fast action mode. Other than me having to focus, the camera does all the work. It's nice because it has Bluetooth in it and it downloads everything I shoot at the same time. But I only let it download at 2mb as the original sized picture takes way too long. So when I go back inside it's only a matter of opening up the iPad or computer and choosing what I want to keep. I end up only keeping about 1 of every 10 I shoot, trying to only keep the best I am able to capture at this time. The camera was new to me in June, so I'm still getting used to it. When I choose to print a shot, I have the original saved on the SD card at the original MB taken, so it's much more detailed than you see here. Thanks for your comments and encouragement you have given to me.

This Adult Male Goldfinch has become a real bad ass these days. He absolutely will not let any other bird feed at the same time he does except his female mate. Here he postures and rests before starting to feed. Then a young Female House Sparrow lands to eat too. He promptly bites her on the top of her beak and drives her to the ground. Then he hangs upside down all postured up in an intimidating pose. Then he uprights and starts raking his beak up and down the feeder screen making an awful noise to scare away the other birds who had come in to see the disturbance. It worked as not another bird challenged him to feed at the same time.

When I first saw this Red-bellied Woodpecker come in at noontime I thought at first it was an albino, but no, it too was going through its summer head molting and looking very out of place.

Wednesday was really busy and not much time for photos. In between appointments this nice Mourning Dove landed right over me and didn't seem too startled for me to be so close by.

After I got buzzed by a couple of Hummingbirds today I hung up the feeder for them. As I only see them migrate through here starting in early August I like to give them a feeding station. They will come in and out of the yard throughout the day stopping for a quick drink. This Ruby Throated Hummingbird came right in this evening. There appeared to be some type of cotton string caught on his foot as it was with him each time we saw him come in. You can see him flicking his tongue out a little bit in the 2nd and 4th photo. The last photo he had just finished drinking and rested on the closeline for almost a minute before taking off to find another place to feed.

This White-breasted Nuthatch was right in front of me upside down trying to hide a black oil sunflower seed in a crack of the tree bark.

A flash of yellow caught my eye and I knew this bird was too big to be a Goldfinch. I got my first picture of a Female Baltimore Oriole, and could have got more but a Dove flew right up and landed next to her, and off she took never to be seen again.

Next both this Male Cardinal and Mourning Dove kept on feeding together and did not fight or invade the others space.

Tuesday was a very good day for spotting birds. This Female Goldfinch was resting on the clothesline and soaking up the morning sun. And this Male Goldfinch came right in to feed on the black thistle seeds.

As I got up to walk back inside the house, this Male Cardinal landed on the neighbors gutter line. If you look close you can see his black beard sticking out from his throat. I also have noticed that when they tilt their head to one side and look downward, they have spotted or heard some possible Cicadas on the ground and are trying to find them.