Ann and I spent a couple of hours doing some birding at San Angelo State Park‘s bird blind. We saw the collection of the regular birds that stay here year round, but was surprised by this winter adult American Goldfinch (carduelis tristis). We actually spotted two. Also of late, we have seen a Ruby-crowned Kinglet. Soon we should start seeing Pine Siskens.
adult winter American Goldfinch
But the target of many of my searches out there continues to evade me. I am speaking of the Northern Harrier. Again, I almost had a great shot of it as it appeared sitting on a fence. But before I could get the camera on it, it was gone. I rattled off a few shots as it left, but they were just blurred streaks. I swear I heard it’s laughter as it went away. I am determined to get a nice frameable photograph of that cotton-pickin’ bird. I’ll get lucky soon.
Information on the Goldfinch photo is, 1/1600 sec @ f5.6, -1/3 EV, ISO 800. Canon 7D with Canon 100-400 lens. Edited in Photoshop Elements, Focus Magic, Topaz DeNoise. Click on the image to see an enlargement.
My secondary quest, besides trying to add to my life list of 218, is to photograph all of those birds. Cindy Kilpatrick, better know to you as “missus76k” in my blogroll, asked me how many of the 218 had I photographed. Well in doing some checking, I think I have gotten about 190 images of that 218. Of course, some of the photos aren’t anything to write home about, as quite a few were just good enough for identification. But, eventually, I would like to have at least an 8×10 of each.
Happy birding!!
Texas Tweeties by Bob Zeller 