Tag: birds

I do want to go back and play with the experimental driving shots more. I feel like I’d have some fun playing around with the sliders at least. I may even come up with some ideas to do more than that. Unfortunately (literally) there is no profit to be had and my time is probably better spent else where. Granted I will probably choose an unfortunate amount of that time reading fiction and watching television. After all Im only human. And let’s face it if I were a highly motivated individual that put more value on money than I do in being content, I’d probably be a lot less content. But that is some of the reason I am doing this blog and trying to do with some kind of normal regularity.

I have deleted my Facebook profile. I did it for multiple reasons, but the reason relevant to this missive would be, I feel it is somehow a better use of my time to type up ideas no one will read and post pictures no one will see than to waste time on Facebook doing pretty much the same thing. This forum will I hope be more pleasant and wholesome. I am trying to distance myself from the political insanity that has been all to pervasive lately. Really, following politics has been a big part of my life since I was a child. My father watched news like other fathers watch football. I understand that politics is deadly serious stuff, but I’m of the opinion my only political outlet is to vote and that only happens periodically. Obsessing over politics has been seeming to me to be less and less healthy. I have no interest in being a politician nor do I have any chance to realistically. So at this time I say politics is for the birds.

That’s a nice segue way that was entirely unplanned. When I started this post I started it with the intention of posting the gallery you should be seeing below. I had the luck, opportunity, timing, availability, and motivation a couple days ago to acquire the following images, and many more that didn’t make the cut. Actually these bird photos are a by product of my main focus for getting out my camera on that beautiful morning. The primary reason to be succinctly is buzzards. There were a couple hanging around in the area and I decided to take the opportunity. I have many shots I would consider worthy of viewing and a couple I think are genuinely good. I will look at them more closely in the coming days, or maybe I’ll play with the experimental road photos. I recon I will decide how to spend my time at the very last minute.

I don’t know a whole lot about birds. I do know that one of these is a cardinal. It’s the red one. Even though I think pretty much everyone knows that. The few shots of the cardinal were somewhat obstructed by the pesky tree it decided to sit on at the time. I feel lucky to have been in the right place at the right time for what I did get.

I believe the one sitting on the lamp is a mocking bird, but that’s only a guess. I think I’m correct, but I’m no authority on the subject. I think this one was a little curious about me, and decided to spend a a minute observing my actions. It probably wondered what I was doing. The close up’s displayed in this gallery are cropped versions of the larger images adjacent to them. The one flying away is our mocking bird friend. Sadly that capture was a little blurry, but I wanted to remember it as well. The shutter speed for this group were all set to 1/500. Apparently that was to slow to capture that motion, thus the blur. I pretty much already know 1/1000 is probably the minimum for getting fast action, like quick animal movements. But I didn’t exactly expect to get this. Plus when I set up for the shoot conditions it had been a long while since I shot birds, and I really didn’t anticipate getting one mid flight. a lack of foresight that could have been overcome. Perhaps next time I’ll remember this lesson.

Usually when I am trying to capture birds in flight I’d have it set it to the 1/1000 or faster, but I usually don’t get anything, because they are just too fast for me to focus on. On some level I know it is best to get them as they are perched, and wait, and hope they take off before your arms get too tired holding the camera still.

Then there are a couple of what I’d guess were some sort of finch. I just assume most small birds I don’t recognize are some kind of finch.

It is spring time more or less and the birds are seeming happy about that. I’s like to think I get other good chances to play with the birds soon.