Bird's eye view

It was a cold and rainy day here, so I once again relied on my bird feeder to provide something for me to photograph for today's post. As it turns out, I was right by the window, camera in hand, when this White-breasted Nuthatch landed on the hook holding the feeder, enabling me to get some nice close-ups of the bird:



The red car in the background belongs to one of my neighbors; I thought it was very nice of them to leave it there so I'd have a contrasting background for these images:



I loved this shot of it delicately holding a single seed in its beak:



Even though I took this shot of the nuthatch at the same time as the first photo in today's post, I saved it for last because this particular image came out so sharp I was able to crop it to provide a close-up view of the bird's head without losing any of the details:



I believe we're expecting more rain tomorrow, which probably means I'll be keeping a close eye on my feeder for at least one more day...

Back to birds in action

For whatever reason, words are not coming easily to me this evening. So I'll keep it short and sweet: basically, I took a ton of bird photos today, both here at my apartment and at Mom and Dad's this afternoon. After much deliberation, I finally narrowed down the list of selections to a manageable number; hopefully, I chose wisely.

To start things off, a Chickadee I photographed just as it began to hop up to the next rung on the feeder:



I almost whooped out loud when I saw how this one came out:



A female Purple Finch:



Over at Mom and Dad's, a female Goldfinch looking even more golden in the late afternoon sun:



A Blue Jay hopping from the hook to the feeder:



A Junco just after landing on the squirrel baffle:



A few shots of various Titmice:







I liked how the Chickadee in flight is nearly sideways in this one:



Photos of some Juncos in action:











A very lucky catch:



And since I began today's post with a shot of a bird from the back, it seemed only right to end it with one as well:

Fly leaf

Just a single photo today, one I took in the line of duty, so to speak. I was asked to put together a postcard to send out to some of our membership, and encouraged to get creative when it came to choosing the postcard's main image. I toyed around with a few different ideas, but not coming up with anything that really grabbed me.

Then yesterday afternoon I was looking at the photos I'd taken of the pond, and asked Yoshi if he thought one of them might work. It didn't seem like a bad idea per se, but the thing that made us both hesitate was the lack of anything museum-specific in any of the shots—when someone found it in their mailbox, they'd just see yet another piece of mail with foliage on it, not an uncommon occurrence in our area this time of year. As we talked and thought about it, I suddenly had an idea—do the same sort of photo as what I'd taken earlier, but with the addition of a fly on top of one of the leaves.

Since the photos we attempted last night didn't turn out all that great (it was late in the day, very overcast, and I had the white balance on my camera set for indoor photos), I went back out first thing this morning and tried again. This time the results were much better. After narrowing it down to a few finalists, this is the shot we ended up using—I think it came out pretty nicely, if I do say so myself:

Leaves on the water: raindrop edition

It rained pretty steadily here for most of the day, and didn't look like it was going to be letting up any time soon. So I figured I'd work with what I had, and at lunchtime I put on my raincoat, went over to the pond, and started taking clusters of shots of different leaves as the raindrops dimpled the water. Naturally, by the time I went home for the day there were blue skies above, but I still really liked my rainy day results.

I took a ton of shots of this leaf, several of which came out very nicely; I had a hard time choosing just one to post. I finally decided on this one because I liked the contrast between how busy the water is top and bottom, yet is relatively calm in the middle—enough so that the leaf's reflection can be seen quite clearly:



With this one, I liked how the different drop-ripples are scattered all around the frame and the effect created when they intersect. Plus I was pretty psyched that the droplets on top of the leaf came out so clearly:



Not much to say about this one—I just thought it looked cool:



I share this one because it made my heart skip a beat when I first saw it. Not because it was an extraordinary photo or anything, but because of the one-in-a-million combination of ripples and light that created the illusion of a spectral hand reaching into the shot from the right:



Really dug the reflection in this one, not to mention how the leaf is standing on its side:



Finally, I picked this one because of the particularly pronounced drop-ripple on the left—I have to figure I snapped this one just after impact:

The birds are back again

I've got a bunch more action shots of birds for you tonight, so I'll just get right to it.

A Junco looking like it's either trying to regain its balance or is about to do the sniff test:



A very lucky catch:



As you can see by these, the birds often get into little spats about who gets to sit where, even when there's plenty of space to be had:















I liked how the edges of the Chickadee's wing feathers stood out in this one:







A male and female Junco facing off:



And it looks like she got to keep her spot:



A few more group shots:







And, of course, our Kaylee shots. This time around I got to photograph her in a playful mood, rather than asleep on the couch. In these two, she's keeping a careful eye on Mom, waiting for any sudden moves:





As for this last one... I can't really put my finger on why I liked it, actually. But I did, so I figured I'd share it here:

Leaves on the water

There's not really much of a story behind today's post; basically, I went out this afternoon and took a bunch of photos of the leaves floating in the pond behind our office. I wish I'd grabbed my polarizing lens, as I think it would have made a nice difference with the reflections in a few of the shots, but it didn't even occur to me to use it until an hour or so later. Ah well. C'est la vie.







I did my best to try a variety of angles, just to keep things from getting too boring:





I know that for the most part the leaves aren't incredibly colorful, but I liked the patterns and textures I saw as I worked my way around the water's edge:





In this last one, I particularly liked how the pine needles looked all clumped together as they floated just beneath the water's surface: