How Much Is That Birdie In The Window

Part of the fun of visiting my parents is that there always seems to be something around that I can take a picture of.  You've seen a wide variety of flowers, insects and critters.  The one thing that you haven't seen very much of is birds.  I managed to grab a quick shot of one last year, but I always end up leaving expecting to have shot more.  Especially since my Mom has a variety of bird feeders on the property and when my camera is safely in its bag, they're always full.  The lot of them seem to be very camera shy.  I still remember a Christmas morning a few years ago where I spent close to an hour sitting outside away from the feeders, waiting for a Blue Jay, Cardinal or any kind of bird at all to come by for a little Christmas breakfast.  No luck.  Now, I know any of you out there with any kind of experience shooting birds or wildlife will be quick to tell me that an hour waiting for my model to arrive is not very much time at all.  Keep in mind, this was Christmas morning, and presents under the tree were calling my name.  My most recent visit saw my luck change.  We were sitting at the dinning room table when my Mom told me that some birds were visiting the feeder.  I went for my camera right away.  I began to shoot with my 24-70mm lens with the idea that I would crop down the images later but quickly realized that the called for the telephoto lens.  It was a little grey outside, and I was shooting through the glass of the patio door, so I upped the ISO and began shooting away.  I also shot at the bit smaller aperture than I usually would because I wanted to make sure that the bird would be in focus.  Those are small little things, and shooting from the distance that I was, I didn't want to risk shooting at f/5.6 (the largest aperture available to me using my telephoto) and not getting the bird in focus.  Thanfully, most of the background was far away and so became blurred in photographs anyway.  The first photograph was taken at f/11, 1/200sec, ISO 400 at 300mm.  The second photograph was taken at f/11,1/200sec, ISO 400 at 300mm.  Here are a couple more shots.

 

f/11, 1/200sec, ISO 400 at 300mm

f/11, 1/200sec, ISO 400 at 300mm

I really like the third photograph in this series.  The look on the face of the bird as another joins it on the feeder caught my attention.  I'm not expert on the mental capacity of birds, but it's almost as if the first bird is giving an unwelcome glare to his newly arrived feeding partner.  That could also just be all in my imagination.  I also like the little details in the feet of the bird, though as I said to my Mom after taking these photographs, they're much less cute in a close-up than they are from afar.  I guess that was my superficial side coming through.  I also like the little flakes of snow that you can see falling in the background of some of the photos.  It was a fun afternoon.  Now I just have to wait for all of the Cardinals and Blue Jays to get the memo that my parents moved and maybe I'll be able to snap some of them next time.