Bird Thread

[Phill D]

Cor great potential there kg hope to see some more great shots.

[Geoff Chandler]

Wonderfull to capture those nest images kgosden
love it!

[kgosden]

Well, no new cardinal nest photos to share. I had to go out of town to Grand Rapids, MI the end of the week. I trimmed a few little branches of my rapidly growing holly to keep a decent nest view. I left my wife in charge of batteries and memory cards on the nest camera. Too bad that meant leaving the good lens and camera at home. I did not know that my hotel in Grand Rapids would be right next to an amazing wetland pond teaming with birds and waterfowl. I do mean teaming as one tree had a pair of blue heron nests and at one point there were 7-8 adult birds roosting in the branches (there are at least 5 in the first photo). The poor little Oly XZ-1 was too little tele for them, but a few flew right over head. There was also at least a pair of hawks, a few dozen pie billed grebes, tons of canada geese and a pair of swans.

[kgosden]

Well, it seems at least one of our cardinal eggs hatched this evening. It was before I got home from Grand Rapids. My wife had setup the camera timer in the morning. The camera caught one little beak barely peaking up at 6:14. No, it is not a great shot, but it is baby's first photo . But that blasted shallow DOF, 10-12 minutes later the proud dad is standing on the side with mom.

Hopefully I will be able to find a good vantage point in the morning. The glare on the window is bad until around 10am. Since it is the weekend I will be here to swap cards and batteries so I will set the timer to 30 second intervals from the present 2 minute one.

[kgosden]

Dad drops by pretty regular to feed mom or the kids. Boy I need a camera with good IQ at ISO6400 to get enough DOF and decent shutter speeds.

[kgosden]

It seems I catch the male feeding the chicks more than the female. The lighting is difficult inside the holly. Heavy green cast and a bit dark, especially in the afternoon. I probably should go with raw, but I do not want to spend the time to process what are effectively lucky snap shots. I also want to maximize the unattended run time as well.

[Falconest174]

KG;
Remarkable shots just the same!

[Phill D]

Yes a unique perspective keep them coming kg.

[Geoff Chandler]

Really cool captures - I especially like that last one

[kgosden]

I am getting pretty lucky with the camera just on timer. I manage to capture a few feeding sessions every hour or so. Biggest challenge there is that the shutter speed tends to be low even at ISO 800-1600 since I am trying to keep the lens in the F6-7 range. The other issue is that the parents are always between the camera and the chicks. When I left the house this morning I set the timer for 15 second intervals. We will see how long the battery lasts. With the display off, manual focus and only JPG's I have easily had 400 photos.