Birding.

[MikeandRong]

I moved up a little closer and sat under the first tree again to get a different angle, as the Woodpeckers let me come up quite close. This little Male Downy Woodpecker comes in and out throughout the day to feed.

 

 

 

And this young Male Hairy Woodpecker is just waiting his turn to feed. Even though they look very similar to the Downy, their body is longer and their beak is much longer and thicker built too.

 

[MikeandRong]

This yearling Male Red-winged Blackbird has almost lost all his baby color camouflage colors. You can just make out the outline on his back where he still has the gold/brown outline on his feathers. However his red and yellow telltale shoulder patch is not lined up at all and is way off centered.

 

 

[MikeandRong]

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.

 

 

[MikeandRong]

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.

 

[MikeandRong]

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

 

 

 

[MikeandRong]

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.

 

[MikeandRong]

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.

 

[MikeandRong]

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.

 

 

 

 

 

[MikeandRong]

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.

 

 

[MikeandRong]

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Allon]

Mike, you must have a fast shutter speed on that camera to catch these guys. And you must be using a good and flexible lens. I assume it's a digital.

 

I have an Olympus long lens and can't get the right settings yet. And it is not flexible as far as range (focal length). My old film camera (I am partial to Olympus but my Nikon is gaining ground) does a better job than the digital ones I have so far. And I have an old German camera that is manual that gets astounding pictures when the settings are right.

 

Good job.

[MikeandRong]

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[MikeandRong]

Mike, you must have a fast shutter speed on that camera to catch these guys. And you must be using a good and flexible lens. I assume it's a digital.

 

I have an Olympus long lens and can't get the right settings yet. And it is not flexible as far as range (focal length). My old film camera (I am partial to Olympus but my Nikon is gaining ground) does a better job than the digital ones I have so far. And I have an old German camera that is manual that gets astounding pictures when the settings are right.

 

Good job.

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.

[MikeandRong]

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.

 

 

[MikeandRong]

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.