I decided to start a new hobby of birding (a.k.a bird watching, though birding is a better term, since one listens to bird songs as well as observes birds). Then I realized that it would be best for me to photograph the birds to help me identify them. Thus began my recent foray into photography. As you've no doubt surmised if you read this blog, I allow myself to photograph subjects other than birds too. But this post is about birds.
It turns out taking good photos of birds, in the wild, is extremely difficult. They are small, typically far away, and just when you think they've settled down in one place, they decide to fly somewhere else. So this is proving quite the challenge. Taking pictures of birds in flight is even harder, but I'm not even going there with today's post.
Here is the first bird picture I took:
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| Mall Bird |
This bird was flying with a few of his friends *inside* the local mall. What a scruffy looking thing. A juvenile House Sparrow maybe? No idea.
These next three birds were photographed in California.
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| Yellow Beak with a Red Accent |
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| Bird Watching the Horizon |
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| Likely Blackbird Sitting in a Tree |
Local birds follow:
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| Female Mallard |
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| I Proudly Wear This Leaf |
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| Tufted Titmouse |
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| Reflecting Swan |
After getting my Olympus gear, here was my first bird photo, taken on the street. There are several things wrong with this picture. It is a boring crow, for one. Not exactly a song bird. Also, the street is in focus, but not the bird. Oh well.
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| First Official Photo of Bird on Street with Olympus Gear |
I took a second shot. Now the bird is in focus, but it appears to be missing a leg.
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| Not Actually Missing a Leg |
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| A Robin Poses on Some Matching Color Wood |
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| Brewer's Blackbird In the Forest |
This owl screeched every so often, helping identify its approximate location. This is first time I have ever seen an owl in the wild. It was 50 feet away, way above my head and in a dark area, which I've brightened up in post processing.
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| Barred Owl |
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| Barred Owl - View 2 |
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| Baltimore Oriole |
This chickadee photo was taken from 25 feet away with my 60mm lens. Usually I use my 75-300mm for birding, so I was happy to get any photo where the bird was identifiable at that distance. The chickadee looked mostly black to the naked eye due to the high contrast sky and lighting, but I managed to pull its truer colors from the shadows in post processing. Not a great photo, per se, but perfectly useful for identification.
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| Black-capped Chickadee |
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