Despite being in the high 30s today (toasty!), the weather so far this year has not been conducive to photography. Grey skies, fog, cold temps, generally blech. So here's two more photos from last Christmas:
Flying high:
A better angle of an eagle catching a fish:
Three hooded mergansers! I've never seen them before - the males have such lovely coloring!
Snapped while out at the Black Dog plant this Christmas:
Our first record of a (immature) bald eagle snagging a fish! Yeah, the weather was cloudy and crummy so the photo wasn't as good as it could be, but still! While we were at that particular hole in the ice we saw 3-4 eagles dive into the river, but this sequence is the best. :)
MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE!!
I hope everyone spent some quality time with family and loved ones and got lots of lovely prezzies. :) My parents got me a laptop and a photo printer, so I can't wait to print out some photos! The bf and I printed out and framed several of the hummingbird photos earlier at Kinkos to give as gifts and it was so inconvenient (the photo machine was broken, argh). Everyone loved the prints - we were very happy it worked out well in the end. And the bf's parents got us a coffee/espresso maker so now I can be caffeinated all the time! *hyper*
It's snowing right now and we're about to have Christmas dinner, so no eagle watching today. But I can post my favorite photos from yesterday!
Here's a bald eagle taking flight: http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y24/sm
And here's one after dining on a fish: http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y24/sm
We saw a cormorant flying around: http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y24/sm
And I spotted a pair of trumpeter swans in the lake: http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y24/sm
Part 1 of my photos from the Thanksgiving trip to Phoenix.
This male Annas hummingbird hung around my parent's backyard and had little fear of me or the camera.
So I took some photos of him
Just a few
Maybe
Oh who am I kidding, he was such a cutie!
We saw quite a few fishing birds while at a bird sanctuary in Phoenix.
This egret spent all the time fishing...
...and eating what it found (great timing!)
We were also lucky enough to see a kingfisher, landing with its own fish in tow.
And we saw lots of birds at the morning walk at the Desert Botanical Gardens.
Lots of hummingbirds here feeding on the flowers
Plus a flock of quails
This one ran across the path in front of us, cute!
It was a nice weekend (temps in the 80s in October! Wow!) so the bf and I went to the nature center to snap some shots of birds. Here are the best ones:
American goldfinch (it's yellow color is muted now for fall and winter)
White-breasted nuthatch (they bounce up tree trunks, often upside-down, heh)
White throated sparrow (I've never seen one of these before!)
I wasn't watching where I was going the other day and I ran square into the sharp side of Kiwi's cage. I now have a bruise on my thigh the size of an egg. :(
Worse, the bf is now concerned that he's contracted Lyme's Disease from that tick several weeks ago. He's got an odd, red mark on the same leg that had the tick. Now I feel bad because I think I did something wrong getting the tick off or something. He's on antibiotics now at least. :( :(
Good news reversal: I saw a rather uncommon bird when I was out last weekend! Look!
An indigo bunting! You can't miss their vivid blue color. It wasn't that frightened of me either, so I got to snap some shots before it left. I'm now using the 300 mm with the 1.4 teleconverter PLUS a monopod to steady things out. People give me long stares as I walk by with such a contraption, heh.
We are GO on renting the 500 mm lens for Yellowstone. Rental price for the week comes to...$250 plus shipping! Still far cheaper than the $5500 retail price. Ye gods though, just LOOK at how big it is!!! That's just ridiculous! ;)
If we get lots of nice shots in Yellowstone we're thinking about making one of those online photobooks. iPhoto has one but you can use other companies as well. You download their softward, upload your cropped and enhanced pics onto pages, add backgrounds and captions as desired, and they'll print it out and bind it into a hard or soft-cover book. Decent prices too!
Oh, and good news X2: I received a HUGE package today containing tons of fancy edibles. Elderberry preserves, whole walnuts in syrup (you apparently can eat them shell and all!), Spanish chorizo, a mean looking BBQ sauce, and LOTS more. I can't wait to try them out. THANK YOU, K!!!!!!! ^_^
I had to pull a tick off the bf this morning. Tweezers and everything. Ew. Ticks are one of my least favorite critters.
He probably got the tick from all those times we've been out to the nature center last week. He got me a 1.4 teleconverter for the camera, so now I'm shooting with a 420 mm equivalent lens when I use the 300 mm. It's a nice boost for birds and it doesn't have a huge negative effect on sharpness.
We saw lots of different birds last weekend, here are the best shots!
A bluebird on top of its nesting box: http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y24/sm
A Baltimore Oriole, so pretty: http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y24/sm
A Ring-Necked Pheasant in a corn field, I've never seen one before: http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y24/sm
A flock of Cedar Waxwings, the bf says it's like they were painted that way: http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y24/sm
Okay, I think my journal is back. For now...
Anyhoo, I have discovered the coolest site for geeky birders! It's www.ebird.org. People sign up and post locations and dates of birds that they've seen and this data is accessible for scientists that are studying bird migratory habits. So anyone can go to this website and search for a certain location (city or state or appointed "birding hotspots" by users) and see all the birds that have been spotted there or search for a particular bird species and see where it's commonly sighted. Very cool!!
I've already signed up and posted all of my birding logs (translation: I went through all my birding photos and used the EXIF data to determine dates and times of sightings). I've posted 22 logs with 49 species seen. Maybe I should skew the data by stating that I see a Pacific parrotlet every day in Minnesota. :P
And here are some photos from our birding outing last weekend:
A yellow warbler with a snack. O_O
A little ruby-throated hummingbird all fluffy after an apparent bath.
