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Some Bird Pictures From A Cold Week

January 18, 2009 – 8:26 pm

This week was one of the coldest weeks Atlanta has had in a few years. The birds were eating seed like crazy. They also discovered our heated bird bath in large numbers as well as the little feeder we stuck to the sliding door to the deck. I tried to take pictures of as many birds as I could but they were always the same birds! Here are a few of the better ones I got:

Our recent invasion of Pine Siskin is a little unusual from what I understand. I guess they don’t usually appear down here in such large numbers. Here they are on our thistle feeder:

Pine Siskin On The Thistle Feeder

Here’s one of my favorite pictures to date. I got lucky with this guy who was sitting on the bird bath.

Pine Siskin on the bird bath

Here’s one of the Pine Siskin eating in our “stick on” window feeder.

Pine Siskin in window feeder

This Eastern Bluebird was very interested in what was going on in the house.

Eastern Bluebird on window feeder

I’m getting better at this bird picture thing but I still take a bunch in order to get a few keepers. Hopefully you enjoy the pictures as well :-)

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By Mark | Posted in Bird Pictures | Tagged , , , | Comments (2)

Pine Warbler At The Feeder

January 10, 2009 – 6:47 pm

This evening, right before darkness settled in, a Pine Warbler came to our feeders.  I’ve seen it a few times in our front yard but not at the feeders before.  Pam has seen it a few times (early morning) on the feeder.

I grabbed the camera and took a few pictures hoping one of them would be OK.  I didn’t have the tripod so I braced myself on the desk in the upstairs office.  This was the best of 5 that I took:

Pine Warbler At Feeder

There is a lot of noise in the picture, due to the low light I suppose, but at least you can see what the bird is.

This makes 10 or 15 species I have photographed at the feeders.  I enjoy trying to photograph the birds in our backyard.  I really would like to improve the quality of the pictures but I think I will need to get a decent spotting scope and good camera adapter to do much better.  We’ll see, maybe sometime later this year we can get a spotting scope and try “digiscoping”.

What kind of camera setups do you use to take nature/bird photos.  Any suggestions for affordable setups that work well?

By Mark | Posted in Bird Pictures | Tagged , , | Comments (2)

We Finally See The Great Horned Owl

December 26, 2008 – 10:11 am

Over the two years we’ve lived here in Atlanta, we have heard, but never seen, a Great Horned Owl.  We could sit out on our deck and hear them calling to each other back and forth through the pines, especially in the Fall/Winter.  A couple of times we’ve seen a brief glimpse of a big shadow flying between the trees but never saw the entire bird.  Well, yesterday that changed!

Sitting On The Deck Minding Our Business

It was a beautiful Christmas day with temps right around 62. We were sitting on our deck watching the birds come and go from the feeder when we heard the familiar call of the Great Horned Owl.  He seemed to be way off in the distance, a few yards over.  A couple minutes later the sound was much closer.  Most of the time we hear them at dusk, when it’s too dark to see anything.  This time it was 3PM and still very light outside so I kept my eyes open in case I might actually see something.

A Big Shadow In The Corner Of My Eye

All of a sudden, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a big bird flying to the top of the neighbor’s pine tree.  I said to Pam, “over there” and we looked over in the direction of the shadow to see the owl perch on the tippy-top of a pine tree, about 100 feet up in the air.  Fortunately we had the camera with us out there so I was able to take some pictures:

Great Horned Owl On Pine Tree

Great Horned Owl On Pine Tree 2

I had to use maximum (12x) zoom on the camera and crop the pictures quite a bit to get these but they came out great as far as I’m concerned :-) The owl sat up there for about 5 minutes turning his head from side to side to listen to the other owls call. We heard two others besides him. Finally he flew off the tree towards one of the other owls. We saw him again a bit later sitting partway down a tree right before dusk.

Worth The Wait

While it was frustrating hearing the owls for two years without seeing them, it was worth the wait!  We were able to get some good pictures of the Great Horned Owl as well as fantastic views with the binoculars.  There was enough light and it was a nice clear day.  That was the first time I had seen an owl in the wild since I was a kid and the 1st time ever for Pam.  She was very excited to finally see one somewhere else besides the Zoo!

Now that we’ve seen the Owl we hope to see him again very soon.  They are magnificent birds and I think it’s neat that they are living amongst all of us people like this.  It shows how much nature is right in your backyard if you listen, and look, long enough!

By Mark | Posted in Bird Pictures, Birdwatching, Significant Birds | Tagged , , | Comments (2)

Holiday Bird Pictures From Our Feeders

December 25, 2008 – 8:00 am

Merry Christmas

And

Happy Holidays to Everyone!

Here are some pictures of the birds from our backyard bird feeder, our gift to all of you.  Thanks for reading and here’s to a great 2009!

This past weekend we “upgraded” our feeder setup.  So far, the birds seem to really like it.  One of the benefits to this setup is that it is a little easier to take photos of the birds as they sit and eat.  I’m still figuring out how to take the best quality pictures from the 2nd floor bedroom but I got quite a few and thought I’d share some of them:

Cardinal and Carolina Wren

Here’s a Cardinal and Carolina Wren sharing the platform feeder. We have a ton of Cardinals in our yard and they really seem to like the platform.

Tufted Titmouse

This Tufted Titmouse was just about to fly off as I took this picture.

Red Bellied Woodpecker

We have a couple of Red Bellied Woodpeckers that frequent the suet feeder. They are a very pretty bird and fun to watch.

House Finch

We have a lot of House Finches and the platform feeder has become their new favorite place.

Eastern Towhee

The Eastern Towhee stays on the ground and picks up whatever he can that falls from the feeders.

Eastern Bluebird and Cardinal

We have a lot of Bluebirds in our yard this Winter. They really like the suet feeder but for some reason this one was on the ground with his buddy the Cardinal.

Eastern Bluebird

Here’s an OK picture of a Bluebird on the suet feeder. My camera has a hard time focusing on the small area of the feeder so the picture is a little blurry.

I’m enjoying the challenge of photographing the birds that visit our feeders. Hopefully I can get better quality photos by tweaking the settings on the camera.

What kind of pictures are you able to get of the birds at your feeders?

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By Mark | Posted in Bird Feeding, Bird Pictures | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (0)
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