Bird Brains III

[Robert Apple]

Black-capped Chickade

[Tobie]

Nice little guy!

[ElinL]

Very cute Robert !

[Tobie]

Tawny Eagle. One of our most powerful raptors in South Africa.

[Robert Apple]

Now that’s what I call a post of juxtaposition, as chickadees are considered to be the cutest most loveable bird, and are one of the smallest. He wouldn’t even qualify as a snack for your eagle.

[Tobie]

True – but I’m sure he won’t refuse such snack! 🙂

[Tersha]

That’s a very regal Eagle! He blends in very well with the background.

[Tobie]

Thanks @tersha! We have such beautiful eagles and this guy is no exception!

[Dahlia Ambrose]

Love this image Tobie. A very majestic pose as well 🙂

[Tobie]

Thanks Dahlia! These birds have royal blood! 😉

[Tersha]

Cute little bird Robert, he looks a lot like a Coal Tit in the UK.
I’m glad you started a new ‘Bird Brains’, it needed doing, the other one was taking forever to load.

[Tersha]

Goldfinch

[Tobie]

What a beaut! It looks like he’s wearing a mask!

[Dahlia Ambrose]

Beautiful bird Diane. Agree with Tobie about the mask 🙂

These birds are found together as a flock, aren’t they?

[ElinL]

Lovely !

[Robert Apple]

Very nice Diane.

[Tobie]

The dynamic range under the bright midday Kalahari sun was just too much to return a decent shot of these birds so I decided to improvise a bit:

 

[Dahlia Ambrose]

Lovely image. Funny the little ones are so tiny and have shorter legs in comparison to the adult ostrich. They look like chicken with strong legs 😀

[Tobie]

Thanks – they are the cutest little things! 🙂

[Robert Apple]

Col Photo, I had a neighbor that raised Ostrich, and Emu, until their old Guard dog died , he was too heart broke to get another dog and got sick of the mountain lions killing off the birds and gave it up. Always wanted to go down and get some close ups, but procrastinated a bit too long.

[Dahlia Ambrose]

That’s a sweet little bird Robert 🙂

[bucweeet]

Here’s a couple of young ones (from the archives)

Ta-Daaaa

 

I’m Batman.

 

[Tobie]

Nice, specially the 1st one! It appears to be exercising! 🙂

[Dahlia Ambrose]

Sweet both the birds. You caught them at the right time Paul 🙂

[bucweeet]

Thanx Tobie and Dahlia.  Forgot to mention that the first is a young Canada Goose and the second is a Swainson Hawk (I got to watch it and it’s two siblings in their next from about 2 days old to almost ‘flight’ time.)

[Tobie]

Red Bishop

Snapped this morning at our local botanical gardens. Not uncommon around here but beautiful nevertheless.

[Dahlia Ambrose]

Wow, love the colours and the pose. Very peculiar bird Tobie 🙂

[Tobie]

Can’t miss it with those colors Dahlia! 🙂

[ElinL]

Amazing colors – as a bit of coal that´s caught fire ! Beautiful shot.

[Tobie]

Thanks Elin! I love his attitude! 🙂

[bucweeet]

As Dahlia and Elin said, great colours Tobie.  I can see what you were referring to a while ago regarding the new lens being ‘almost too sharp’.  Really well done in both the image and post-processing.

[Tobie]

Thanks Buc’s!

[Tobie]

Egyptian Geese

Some more cuteness snapped at our local botanical gardens this morning. Click on the image to enlarge.

[Robert Apple]

Both nice shots Tobie, the geese are interesting as the gosling’s must develope the orange eyes later on.

[Tobie]

Thanks Robert. Yep, as usual the little ones are quite different from the adults.

[Dahlia Ambrose]

So sweet. Love it Tobie 🙂

[Tobie]

Thanks Dahlia! It was a misty, gloomy day and I decided to push through with my plans to visit the garden regardless. These two shots made it worthwhile! 🙂

I actually believe the red bishop shot would not have ‘worked’ in sunlight as the dynamic range would just have been too much to handle by the gear.

[Dahlia Ambrose]

It is indeed a rewarding visit Tobie.

Yes, the diffused light makes the colours in the red bishop image pop and the soft glow in that image is beautiful. I too think it wouldn’t have worked so well in sunlight 🙂

[ElinL]

So cute !

[Tobie]

I could not take my eyes off them – they were the reason I almost missed the shot of the red bishop higher up! 🙂

[ElinL]

Green hermit

So small and yet so fierce

[Tobie]

Nice! Long beak compared to its body size!

[Dahlia Ambrose]

Nice image Elin. It looks a bit like the bee eaters and I love the light in the image 🙂

[Robert Apple]

He does look fierce, almost angry. Good shot .

[Rob Eyers]

Some nice images here. Here is my turkey. Taken in the jungle at the Calakmul Mayan ruins in the Yucatan. Very little available light.

 

[ElinL]

Beautiful ! Designated for Thanksgiving or pardoned ?

[Rob Eyers]

I’m sure they’re tasty Elin but I’d rather look at them.

 

[Tobie]

I love it @reyers! Down here our turkeys (all farm bred, no ‘wild’ ones) are all a mix of a dull grey and white.

[Rob Eyers]

Thanks Tobie. Our turkeys in Ontario have been farm raised as well. The wild ones were hunted to extinction many years ago. They have been reintroduced in the last decade or so and now are flourishing once again. Our wild ones are dull grey and white like yours.

[Dahlia Ambrose]

Beautiful bird Rob. So many colours…love it 🙂

[Rob Eyers]

Thanks Dahlia. The colours are amazing. These guys must not have many predators as they were quite calm. This group of a dozen or more came within 6 feet of me while feeding on bugs.

[Robert Apple]

He is pretty cool, such Vibrant colors.

[ElinL]

Don´t mess with this guy !
Purple honey-creeper from Trinidad.
Sometimes I wonder if the fierce look some small birds have serves a biological function.

[Rob Eyers]

Beautiful colour on this bird Elin. I wonder if the black around their eyes helps them to see better.

[ElinL]

Thank you Rob, Dahlia and Robert. Rob, your suggestion seems plausible as the dark may absorb the light around the eyes. Not the reason though that we women apply dark mascara and lines….

[Dahlia Ambrose]

Love this Elin. Agree, with Rob. Striking colour on the bird 🙂

[Robert Apple]

Great Photo Elin

[Rob Eyers]

Who is watching who?

[Dahlia Ambrose]

Wow, gorgeous colours Rob and a beautiful image. The background matches so well with the bird’s colours too! 🙂

[Robert Apple]

Love It

[ElinL]

So sweet ! Beautiful colours – the background matches well with the bird !

[Rob Eyers]

Thank you Dahlia, Robert and Elin. It’s a female cardinal. They stay here in Southern Ontario all year and are seen on our feeders daily.

This was shot through our window with my new updated 100-400mm II lens. Pretty happy with the improvements that Canon has made.

[ElinL]

Congrats with your new lens Rob. I bought this lens to take with me to Arima, Trinidad – and was not disappointed – great glass !

[Robert Apple]

American White Pelicans
I have watched theses guys ride the thermal winds in the mountains which can reach up to 20,000 ft high until they just disappear to the naked eye, couldn’t even guess How high theses guys were.

[Robert Apple]

Doing the Splits.

[Robert Apple]

On my way to the shop this morning saw these Bald Eagles in the tree across the creek

and this Rough-Legged Hawk in the field across from the shop

Wish I had the DSLR with me, just had the Panasonic hybrid which only has a 130 mm equivalent

[Tobie]

Lovely! I agree – a pity you did not have something with longer reach with you! Load it into the car’s boot and keep it there! 😉

[Robert Apple]

There in lies the Issue Tobie, we have 6 cars, I do leave my older DSLR in the Full sized truck but with temps getting below zero it’s not the best idea. When I got this one out of the bag this AM the lens immediately fogged over and froze. I keep it, the Panasonic hybrid, in the Jeep and a Nikon point and shoot in the Audi. I do have his funky zoom lens for the pixel phone , that I most always have with me, but I need to do some reconfiguration on the phone holder so you can reliably mount it and get consistently decent photo.

[Tobie]

I was always wondering about this: There’s some drops on the market for the purpose of preventing fog on your mask when diving. Wonder if it would cause any damage on lens glass? Regardless of that: you’ll always have to keep your batteries out of below zero temp’s otherwise you’ll still be in trouble.

[Dahlia Ambrose]

They still are nice images Robert 🙂

[Tobie]

I was so cross at this Half-collared Kingfisher on Tuesday. I was on my way out of our local botanical gardens when I saw it perched on a rock in the middle of a pond. I immediately got ready for a shot but I was too late – it saw me and flew off to a dark spot in a tree. I had to raise my ISO’s to 1250 and lower my s/s to 1/200s to get a sensible shot, in spite of hand holding it at 600mm f/l.

View post on imgur.com

I then waited for about half an hour hoping that it would return to the sunny rock but instead it dived into the water and emerged with a fish! But then it went and sat on one of the metal ornaments in the park! I was so cross that I totally forgot to adjust my exposure and thus blew my highlights into smithereens! 🙂

View post on imgur.com

View post on imgur.com

In case you’re wondering why I was so cross – it had this metal rod obscuring the bird in both shots above! Thanks heavens for PS’s Content Aware Fill (image unedited):

View post on imgur.com

[Robert Apple]

He is cool Tobie, we have a western King fisher here in Wyoming but I have yet to run across one.

[Tobie]

The kingfishers are among the world’s most beautiful birds Robert. I’m curious about the western kingfisher as Google could not help me much so you better take a few shots of one and post them! 😉

[Robert Apple]

Thus far this is as close as I have come, need to chat with the game rangers though and see where they can be found.

 

[Tobie]

Is it the Belted Kingfisher you’re referring to? It looks like a beauty! In general you need a bit of luck and lots of patience to snap a kingfisher. If you’re prepared to wait a bit for it to get used to your presence however, you’re usually rewarded with a nice shot – and a fish in its bill is top reward! 🙂

[Robert Apple]

Yes, the Belted Kingfisher, Locally its also called the Western Kingfisher. I spend a lot of time in wetland, lake, stream, swampy areas not only taking photos but fishing as well, and as a former water foul hunter, and I have only seen one of theses guys once, and that was several years ago.  Going to put in some serious research as far as local habitat and the birds feeding and possible migratory habits.

[Graham Hart]

I’m just glad to know that you’re human like the rest of us Tobie. So far every shot I’ve seen of yours has been nothing short of perfect. I feel a little less inadequate now.

[Tobie]

Thanks for the nice words Graham – IMHO the only difference between me and you guys is that I’m probably getting many more opportunities to photograph subjects in nature because I live in Africa – and one of the countries rich in life and variety. You just don’t know how many shots I file in File 13! 😉

[Dahlia Ambrose]

Can totally understand why you were so cross Tobie. Beautiful bird and you have caught the moment perfectly.

Kingfishers are beautiful birds and so nice to know that there are different ones in different parts of the world. The one in our hometown looks similar, but has a red beak 🙂

[Janice Gill]

[Tobie]

Lovely shot! He obviously has no problem with feeding upside down! 🙂

[Dahlia Ambrose]

Nice image Janice. Makes me want to tilt my head 😀

[Author]

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