Day 325 - First Flowers

I saw the first flowers, purple crocuses, on the forest floor by the river.  I had almost passed them by because they were so tiny, but things seldom get overlooked these days.  I only had my  Canon EF 100-400mm f4.5-5.6L IS USM Telephoto Zoom Lens for Canon SLR Cameras with me, and therefore, I was a little bit constrained with trying to get the perspective right.  In the end, it's just recording the detail that was more important for me.

It had been extremely chilly and windy, and I hardly saw many birds.  It seemed like they were all hiding from the cold and the wind somewhere, because a lot of the birds have just migrated, and they are probably as surprised as we are at the lack of milder Spring temperatures. 

The waters were extremely choppy and I had fun watching this Mallard couple bobbing up and down on the waves.  They kept getting pushed up on the crests of the waves and then dipping into the troughs.  They looked really cute! 

And a few others from the evening:

Day 318 - Chickadees and Great Blue Heron

My shots have been pretty unsatisfactory of late.  I think my bird photography skills have become pretty rusty over the winter months.  :(  But right now, my main motivation to keep clicking is to just get the 365 challenge over and done with, although I haven't strictly adhered to it.  However, I can say this much - I have tried my best, given the set of circumstances.  I am slowly getting to the grand finale, and I can't wait!

Day 310 - It's Only Birds ...

... And birds are all I have, to take your heart away

Sorry for the bad pun, but I've had the original song "It's only words.. " going round and round in my head these past couple of days.  I somehow had to get that out of the system.

The first shot is SOOC - this sparrow dropped out of the blue and I was probably more surprised than he was.  Had I been prepared, I wouldn't have cut the tail off the poor soul.  I barely got a shot of him landing on the balcony, which I had to discard as it was totally out of focus, and then I got this one, before he took off. :(

This is a Common Grackle I found perched really high up.   I had to crop quite a bit to be able to get any detail out of this shot.

And the red-winged blackbirds are back too, and what a racket they make!

Day 302 - Sunday Morning Birds

Quick post today, but not without mentioning that the nuthatch images have very minimal post-processing, besides cropping (my 250 mm lens just isn't enough to help me fill my frame with these tiny birds), and a wee bit of sharpening.

However, the Chickadee shot was a different story - I shot the image through a double-glass window, and I had to clean up the image quite a bit in post.

Day 288 - Odd Numbers in Photography

I had quite a photography disaster this evening!

After not having the energy to leave home to do my shot of the day, I decided that I should keep up the snow theme for the rest of the week.  So, I could take a few shots from the balcony in an effort to keep that up.  The skies looked pink, with the snow clouds and the impending snow showers, and I thought an evening sky on a long exposure would make a great shot.

I was proved wrong, when I couldn't get a single shot to look the way I wanted because of the high winds that kept moving the trees causing a lot of blurred motion.  I thought I could use the blur as the subject, since I couldn't control the elements, but it just didn't work, and the wind kept shaking the camera, besides chilling me to my bones, of course.  So, I gave up and came back indoors.

This leads me to post one of a few images I took a couple of days ago, and to explain what I mean by odd numbers in photography, which you might already know about, but which doesn't stop me from revisiting - the rule of including odd numbers in our images.

We often inadvertently incorporate this rule into our photography.  An odd number always creates a better image than an even number of objects that lead the brain to look for symmetry, which in most cases looks boring.  Additionally, it is said that the more time it takes the brain to process something, the better it is appreciated.

Sometimes three or five don't make a crowd.  However, we need to be careful of not introducing too many numbers as this will ultimately lead to clutter.  Keep it simple and clutter-free, but it's nice to create a little bit of interest and help the eyes travel all over an asymmetrical image, especially if you create a group/cluster of three or five, instead of putting them in a straight line.  Although, mind you, straight lines work better in cases where you want to create leading lines or patterns.  The artistic choice finally lies with you!

When I shot these images, I hadn't realized that I took only a couple of images with the two starlings in the tree, but most of my images had three of them in it.  There was a large flock of these feathered guys, but I was somehow able to isolate and shoot the three close together.  Maybe this was totally accidental, or maybe it was subconsciously executed.  Who's to tell!

To illustrate the case in point, here are three shots.  Do let me know which one(s) you find most interesting.

And while this is a rule in composition to use odd numbers, there are always exceptions to this rule and it's always nice to be able to break them creatively.

Day 286 - Flocks of Birds

I started my day with the song of an Oriole - it was most probably a Baltimore Oriole, but I could be wrong and it could be the Brown Creeper I saw a couple of days ago.

I spent most of the morning running between my bedroom and balcony and being on the balcony trying to get as many bird shots as I could.  The weather was unpredictably crazy - what started off as sunny and gorgeous, turned grey and snowy within minutes, and for a few minutes we had near white-out conditions. That cleared to give way to sunshine and then some more cloudiness.  As soon as the sun came out, the birds did too.  At one point, the little park at the back was full of woodpeckers, nuthatches, brown creepers, starlings and sparrows.

I also stood and watched a squirrel running around hoarding food and eating part of it.  That was really cute!

This one is a Male Hairy Woodpecker.  The difference between this one and the Male Downy Woodpecker is that the Hairy Woodpecker's bill is longer than the size of its head, whereas the Male Downy's bill is about the same length as its head.  The females of either species don't have the red patch on the crown.

This one is a Male Downy Woodpecker.  Notice the length of the bill is shorter than that of the Hairy guy!

White-Breasted Nuthatch.  I love these guys - they look really cute!

And since I had proclaimed this week's theme to be snow, here then is a shot with snow in it!

Day 236 - Relearning the Alphabet: The Letter "W"

"W" for Warbler (catching up)

A few shots of a Yellow-Rumped Warbler taken in Fremont, California.  I think this is an adult female eastern, but if you think otherwise, please drop me a line.

I have had quite a bit of trouble with my camera and realized that a good camera paired with my 250 mm lens could have gotten me a long way.  However, that wasn't meant to be so I had to crop these photos really tight to see the tiny bird.

Day 182 - Breakfast time!

I spent a good half hour photographing sparrows and pigeons at the bird feeder this morning.  Obviously, at the cost of my breakfast.  But it was fun.  I shot these images through the window, but despite the dirt and spider webs on it, I got pretty clear shots. 

I initially started to shoot from a long distance, not wanting to spook the birds.  My balcony is west facing, and therefore doesn't receive much morning light.  Therefore, I had pretty poor light to work with.  On top of that, the brighter background wasn't helping me at all, despite high ISO and slower shutter speed.  So, although I was worried that the flash might bother the birds, I still went ahead and used it - the birds didn't even move a hair!  That was nice!  

Then I got bolder, and sneaked through the kitchen and planted myself within 2 or 3 feet of the window.  The shots got better.  And the Fall colours in the park in front of my balcony really created a great background for the shots.   

I had a great time doing this.  I will now have to find out what winter birds I might get and prepare to feed them as well.  But I'm worrying about the background when the leaves are gone. :(

Day 120 - Lesser Goldfinch

This is probably the female.  I had a really hard time getting good photographs as this little birdie was in a darker part of the foliage and I had the sun shining right in my eyes.

This shot was polarized and I like the way I see the shadow instead of a reflection.  Also, the colours look a lot better than when I was shooting without the C-PL.

This is an Eastern Forktail.  Unfortunately, in my hurry to get a nice close-up of this one, I forgot to check the aperture and thus lost out on the DoF.

Day 113 - Bald blackbird?

Not sure of what to make of this one - is this bird bald, or is this a juvenile slowly growing up and "upwards" as well?  He looks hilarious, however - just like a balding old man in a long, heavy coat,  and without a hat! :)

This mallard hen was just fed some bread and therefore condescended to pose for me.

Day 110 - Scorching!

One of the days during the heat wave.  The effect wasn't exactly what I was hoping for.  I wanted the image a little bit hazy to depict the haze of the heat, but I couldn't spend enough time on this as the gull decided to take off after I'd fired my second shot. :-(

Day 103 - Forster's Tern

This was the first time I saw one of these.  The tern was fishing and flying around for a bit before I realized it wasn't another seagull.  When I finally prepared to take some shots, it decided to take itself elsewhere.

These cute little ducklings are most probably Gadwalls.  It's difficult to tell by the females if they are Gadwalls or Mallards.  The mother was a few feet away from these duckies, but I wasn't able to figure out the id.

Day 99 - Of birds and bees

Day 96 - By the river

Day 95 - The Baltimore Oriole

Saw this guy foraging for insects just outside my bedroom window.  As I've mentioned in my earlier posts, these little guys are extremely restive and aren't the perching kinds.  They just flit from one branch to the other without slowing down - very tricky to catch without a super telephoto lens either.  This is the best one I got through the glass window.  I blew out a couple others that could have been better handled.

Day 87 - More birds

Two men and their dog gone fishing on the St. Lawrence River.

I spotted two more birds this evening - the common grackle and a couple of cedar waxwings.  I saw a couple of yellow warblers, but it was already too dark and they were too high up for me to snap them.  Oh, well!

This is most likely a lincoln's sparrow, but I'm not completely certain.  

The beautiful colours of the common grackle, captured in the glow of the setting sun.

The cedar waxwing - it very difficult to snap this one as he was hiding behind leaves.  Took a while to get shots clear of branches.  This is the best one I could get.