Friday the 13th Birding

Friday the 13th fell on a Friday this month.  Does this scare me.  Of course not.  I am not suspicious of stuff like that.  I ain’t afraid of the dark, either, nor am I afraid of the creatures that lurk under my bed.  However, I keep my feet under the covers just in case.  I also don’t walk under ladders since I once fell off of one once.  Luckily, I was standing on the bottom rung at the time.

So with that in mind, Ann and I decided to throw caution to the wind and go birding.  We thought we would get lucky.  Well it depends on what you could call lucky.  On the unlucky side, there weren’t many birds.  It was a beautiful day and I can’t understand that.  We did see 32 species, but most were flyovers, or on the move in the trees, or too far to consider even trying to photograph.  Most of what I did try to shoot were, save for a few exceptions, very far away, up to 250 yards, and that doesn’t make for good closeups.

On the lucky side, I was able to make lemonade out of the lemons.  Thanks to my 150-600mm Tamron zoom lens, I was able to get some cropable (is that at word?) images.  Here is an example.  This Red-tailed Hawk was of those distant ones.  Here is the original image, and keep in mind, this is through my long lens.  Imagine what it looked like at with the naked eye.

Uncropped image of a Red-tailed Hawk

Cropped imge:

cropped Red-tailed Hawk

We continued driving and saw these at Spring Creek Park.  This female Northern Cardinal gave me problems with the lighting in the shadows.  It was mid-morning and the sun was bright.  I was able to correct it in my post processing.

female Northern Cardinal

A few minutes later we spotted this Great Horned Owl.  Same shadow problems.  But heck, I was happy to get the photos any way I can.

Great Horned Owl

Below the trees a male Northern Cardinal was scratching in the grass and leaves.

Northern Cardinal

Then cruising along the water, looking across about 200 yards away again this Great Blue Heron was standing and just gazing.  Heavily cropped like the hawk photo above.

Great Blue Heron

High above, about another 250 yards away, a Black Vulture was enjoying the light, warm breeze.  Again heavily cropped.

Black Vulture

On the way home we stopped again at the beach at Mary Lee Park to check on the Ring-billed Gulls.

Ring-billed Gull

Well that’s it for tonight.  Going to bed, with my feet under the covers, because you never know………. (cue Friday the 13th music.)