More Photos From Yesterday

If you've ever taken photos of birds you know that for every good picture you take, you get 20 bad ones. After going through all the pics I took yesterday (9-24-10) I found a few more gems in the bunch! Enjoy! Oh, the Downy above is NOT eating black sunflower seeds! He perched there bridfly to see what was offered than flew right over to the suet!

Same birds, New Day, New Photos!

For those of you enjoying my blog, I do wish to apologize for the lack of variety in the birds I blog about. Since I do 99% of my birding in my backyard, I'm limited to photographing the birds that come to me since I rarely go searching elsewhere for them (at least not with my camera, anyway)!
I must admit, my visitors are getting used to me and my camera. They don't even seemed to be bothered by my new, rather threatening looking new lens, lol! I am grateful for the nice variety I do have in my yard but I still wish I would get an American Goldfinch or maybe a Blue Jay again. I hear the Jays in the trees but can't ever see them. I had a goldfinch land in my tree long enough for me to snap a photo through my (dirty) window with my point-and-shoot camera but it showed up a a yellow blob only! That was two weeks ago and not even a hint of it showing up again :( I even heard a Magpie nearby but couldn't locate it either. On another note, while sitting on my deck this evening I heard an American Robin and I soaked in it's song as I feel it will be the last time I hear it until the spring. I already miss them! The photos above were taken this morning. I had two female and on male Downy hang around for quite awhile. The White and Red-breasted Nuthatches showed up again along with the Flickers and Finches but no Chickadees today!

Birds Galore...What A Treat!

Red-breasted Nuthatch

Northern Flicker

Downy Woodpecker

Black Capped Chickadee

Black Capped Chickadee...again.

White-breasted Nuthatch

White-breasted Nuthatch

All of the birds pictured above (plus many House Finches) were all in my backyard this morning at roughly the same time! You should've heard all the chattering going on between them! It was a treat indeed!!! I took all these photos (plus MANY more that didn't turn out too great) within about a 30 min time span. It was a much cooler, overcast day today with rain in the forecast on this last day of summer. It seems the birds can sense Autumn is near. They are more than welcome to visit my backyard anytime...I will do my best to keep food plentiful!!!

Molting House Finch!

This fella is looking a bit shabby!

I'm excited to say that the above photograph was taken with my new lens...a Sigma 50-500mm!!!!!! Before this lens, I mainly used myCanon 70-200mm (L) lens which can get close but not as close as 500mm! When photographing birds you can never be too close. The downside to this lens is it's quite heavy so my arms get tired easily. I have signed up for a local photo shoot at the Denver Zoo on October 9th and I'm hoping to come back with my CF card loaded with all sorts of great bird and other wildlife photos. With my new lens I can really get up close and personal!

Bird-related Craft Projects!

When I saw these Crocheted Birds...I just had to make one for myself!!! I rarely crochet anymore but I whipped one of these out in just a couple of hours. It was fun to make something tangible with my hands again as it seems everything I make these days is virtual with my digital scrapbooking, digital photography, digital greeting cards....you get the idea!
While I was on my crafting kick, I remembered when I was a young girl in the 70's my mom did a ton of macrame projects. I especially remember the owls! I did a search and found the pattern and whipped one of these adorable retro Macrame Owls out, too! Here's the pattern I used but there are many variations floating around the web.

Cooper's Hawk in my backyard!

I got to witness some predator vs prey action right in my backyard. Luckily for the Flicker, things ended well but the Copper's Hawk was left hungry. It was dinnertime and we were getting ready to have dinner on the deck when I saw the action. As I stepped out on my deck, I ducked because I thought a Flicker was going to dive-bomb me. Then I realized there was this Cooper's Hawk right on it tail and very close to nabbing it mid-air! They both zoomed around to the side of my house and as I poked my head around the corner, the hawk had landed on my fence and the Flicker was nowhere in sight. I quickly grabbed my camera but unfortunately didn't have my DSLR and had to resort to using my point and shoot thus resulting in a less-than-desirable image. I was able to get it to look a bit decent with some post-processing. I thought it was odd that the hawk stopped dead in it's tracks to land on my fence and since it stayed there for a bit I thought sure it may have caught the Flicker as it turned the corner, dropped it and was waiting for it's audience to leave so it could return to it's prey. It finally flew away and I surveyed the area around my house and didn't find any evidence that the Flicker had been caught. I'm sure glad I didn't have to witness that! Bird world is harsh!