bluebird?

We saw this bird at a rest stop in Montana, is it a bluebird? Doesn't look exactly like the bluebirds we have in Wisconsin.

Voluntary Pets

Very soon my parents will be here. It will be the first time they have visited in the summer, the last time they were here was 3 1/2 years ago, for Tristan's birth. This time they are coming for Mikal's wedding.

They'll be bringing their dogs with them, but I can't help but wonder how their voluntary pets will fair while they are gone.

Who will feed the birds?

Let's all say a little prayer that they will manage while their caretakers are away, especially this little blind finch.

Hosted by Cecilyand Lisa

Getting into nature

September 21st:

When I want to get out in the woods, but don't have a lot of time, I just walk across the street and walk the path there.

There are many raspberries in the summer and we have a freezer full now.

The only competition was the deer, chipmunks and birds.

The dragonflies would land nearby but I don't think they eat the berries.

As I walked into the clearing/playground I couldn't resist the moon's pull.

Then a bluebird drew my attention momentarily.

On the way to take my berries inside I spied a spider and her eggs.

Yummy!

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October 8th:

Two weeks later and the leaves have changed. I wanted to show the sky that we get to see so many months of the year. In fact, this sky has more blue in it. Most of our winter is spent with white skies and ground.

This is a view towards the road from the side of our house. The trees leaves are now gone, and the bush is totally red and losing leaves every day.

They sure were beautiful the short time they were here. This is the large tree in our back yard, it's always so bright towering over our home.

And I always love the color of the leaves against the white bark - the background has kind of lines - that was snow pelting me while I snapped.

I just loved this rock wall - from our trip to Washington Island earlier this month.

And we enjoyed walking this road while on the island. Fall was SO short here!

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October 27th:

Twister and I walked the path to the park, he has the raspberry bushes on either side of him, as you can see they're done too. You can't see many trees, but trust me, all leaves are gone.

We had a day of sunshine and warmth - I think it was in the 40s, lol - so we took advantage of it.

On our trek back home we discovered this nest, funny that it must have been there, right across the road from my home, all summer and I never knew it was there, until the leaves fell.

After we got home Twister put the eyes, nose, and mouth on this little pumpkin for his mom and dad. He did it all by himself; I did not hold his hand.  I think he did very good!   He's only 2 years old. Such a big boy! Now if he'd only talk to me. :(

Red, White and Blue

I don’t expect to see Bluebirds in the winter, so imagine my surprise when I found a whole posse of them in a park in Red Wing, Minnesota.

So bright! I figured their colors would dull for the winter like Goldfinches do.

I think they look beautiful against the snow! What a fun surprise. :)

How I shoot Bluebirds

So, the next morning I woke up to the sound of Bluebirds. I was so excited that they were still here! I had to grab the camera and run out to see if “she” was still showing interest in my birdhouse.

Isn’t he beautiful! The males are SO bright right now.

I sat with my lens trained on the opening to the birdhouse waiting to see her peek out. There was no peeking this time, as she came out, he came down and I was so excited thinking I must have caught them terrifically. . .

Then so disappointed when I saw this on the computer. The focus remained on the opening, not the quickly moving birds. I’m thinking, if I had allowed the flash to go off I might have been able to freeze their wings, but then again I think they moved out of the area I had in focus so this is just it.

When she went back in, I tried again and she came out a little slower this time.

She’s doing a little house cleaning, but once again she moved out of my area of focus. Her little feet sure look good though, don’t they?

See, these last three photos all happened so fast I didn’t have the chance to move the camera.

She looks so sweetly curious, I just had to see what she was looking at. So, I moved the lens down, below her, and. . .

At this point I decided to go buy some nesting material to help encourage them to stay.

But this little Nuthatch caught my eye. I still thrill over the zany Nuthatches. I’ve only seen the white-breasted ones lately though and am kinda missing the itty bitty red-breasted ones. If you’re not familiar with Nuthatches, they are really fun to watch as the walk down trees eating insects from the bark. This guy had been digging around in some leaves prior to walking along the driveway.

This is a female Brown-headed Cowbird. These birds are new to me, but according to my bird book they are the only parasitic bird in the state, laying their eggs in host birds’ nests, leaving others to raise their young. So I guess they’re footloose and fancy free.

I was probably 20-30 feet away from the birds in these photos. That’s typically about as close as they’ll let me get. That’s my set-up there for birding. The 100-400mm on the Canon 40D, they are pretty much married, it’s rare for me to change the lens on that camera.

That’s the zoomiest lens we have and it can be used on any of our cameras. That being said, if it is put on the 5D, it would not be as zoomy. The 5D has a full frame sensor and the other cameras (Xti, 20D, 40D) have smaller sensors. Think of them like widescreen and full frame movies. When we bought the 5D, I almost got a 5D too, but I knew that I like to bird and the smaller sensor gives me more zoom. So I went with the 40D.

The 40D has a fast processor and many sports photographers choose it. It reacts quicker than the other cameras. It can shoot 5 frames per second compared with their 3 frames per second. This matters in birds. And when I saw the bird guy speak a couple of weeks ago, he says he uses the Canon 40D too, and he’s a pro.

watching the bluebirds