Yellow-billed Cuckoo

Before I start, I wish to welcome all of the new readers that have subscribed to my blog in the past several months.  One of them, in particular, caught my interest.  Duane Sugarbaker, of my hometown of Muskegon, Michigan recognized my former street address there at 913 Fleming Avenue on this image inserted in my last post.  He well should have, as he lived at 901 of the same street. He and I and my brothers were childhood friends back in the ’40s.  Talk about a small world.  I haven’t seen him in around 65 years.  Duane, tell all the guys from our sandlot baseball team, hello. 🙂

This blog now has 1,472 subscribed readers, plus hundreds more who haven’t subscribed, in 150 countries.  It has received, since the beginning about four years ago, 111,295 hits.  Rats, I was going to give a prize for the 110,124th hit, but it got away from me.  Sorry about that. 🙂

Okay, now about today’s birding.  Ann and I decided to see if there were any birds about at Spring Creek and Middle Concho Parks.  We spent about two hours, and only saw 17 different species.  So much for the mid-summer doldrums.  Here is one photo of a Black Vulture wandering around in the grass.

Black Vulture

However, one of the highlights was spotting a Yellow-billed Cuckoo.  They usually keep themselves hidden.  This one did so, partially, but I was unable to get a decent shot.  So I will show these images from my archives.  I don’t think I ever blogged about them, anyway.  If I did it was probably several years ago.

Yellow-billed Cuckoo

They perch pretty much upright on the branch, usually with their bill pointing upward.  Their white breast stands out when you are looking for them in the trees.

Yellow-billed Cuckoo

I don’t usually publish photos with birds and their tail cut off, but it didn’t hurt the composition in this photo, I don’t think.

Yellow-billed Cuckoo

Yellow-billed Cuckoo

I hope you enjoyed the photos and the narrative.  Click on any image to see an enlargement.

Coming this weekend, Part III of my on-going Yakkety-Sax Man epic.  If you haven’t done so check out Part I and Part II.

Also, I have now sold nearly 100 copies of my book “Birds, Beasts and Buttes”.  They are still available from my Blurb publisher on the right side of this page.

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

It was about nearly 70 years ago when I got my first camera.  I was just a kid, obviously, but it was a thrill to get it.  It was a little Brownie Hawkeye if I remember correctly.  A little box camera with a tiny window on top that you look down on to see the image you want to shoot.  My folks liked to take Sunday drives around the western part of Michigan.  I think one of my memories was to drive, (my parents did the driving), up along the Muskegon River.  It was always great scenery, and I loved to visit the different dams upstream.  But anyway, I always had my little Brownie with me.

Later on, I moved up a bit to one with an actual viewfinder.  I think it was an Ansco.  I forget what size film it used, but I don’t think it was 35mm.  I think it was some kind of roll film.  Later on when I was in the military and stationed in Turkey, near Istanbul, was I able to get my first 35mm camera.  It was a German-made Kodak Retina 3S, a rangefinder type,  that I bought in the Base Exchange.  It had interchangeable lenses, a standard 50mm, an 85mm and a 135mm.

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

But to get along with story, there is no way that I could photograph birds the way I do today with any of that equipment.  Today I use state-of-the-art, top of the line Canon equipment.  For the photograph of the Ruby-crowned Kinglet, (Regulus calendula, I used a Canon EOS 7D, Canon 500mm f4 lens with a 1.4 tele-converter.  The bird was tiny, about 4 1/2 inches,  approximately 20 feet away.  Using spot metering and only the center focusing point, I was able to nail the shot of the bird among the tree branches.  Exposure was 1/500 sec. @ f5.6 at an ISO of 100.  That set-up is rather heavy so I made the shot from the window of my car, using a Puffin’ Pad window support.

The image was taken in March of this year.  Since then, the Puffin’ Pad wore out from the weight of my equipment.  I now, with an idea from (click) Ron Dudley, use a Noodle.  That is one of those swim flotation thingees.  They come in length of about 4 feet.  Just cut it to size, slit it down the middle, and it fits over your partially opened window glass.

Say, before I forget, please remember to vote in the current (click) Bird ID.

Click on the image to see an enlargement.

Dueling Snowplows

A couple of years ago we were visiting relatives in Michigan.  We were strolling around and found these two sitting next to a storage building, waiting for winter.  They should give you a chuckle.

Dueling Snowplows

Merry Christmas!  🙂

Eagles, Vermilion Flycatcher – editing

For lack of anything else to do this cool Sunday afternoon, I decided to go through some very old images that I almost threw away.  Fortunately, I keep almost all the bad stuff, in hopes that sometime I can obtain the right software to maybe make something out of them.  You know, make lemonade out of lemons.

Here are three examples.  The first is a Vermilion Flycatcher that I photographed a few years back, with one of my older cameras.  The bird was so far away, I could hardly get him in my view finder.  I was using my 500mm lens with a 1.4 converter.  The first is the original, the second is a new edited image.  I first ran the original through my Image Focus software, then thru Topaz DeNoise to remove any noise.  I then cropped it as shown, done a little more sharpening.  I doesn’t look too bad.

Vermilion Flycatcher - original

Vermilion Flycatcher - edited

The second photo is a Bald Eagle, taken down at a nest near Llano, Texas.  In this case, I used my 500mm lens as usual, but I also had to use my 2x converter because it was very, very far away.  The problem is that when using my 2x converter, my auto-focus is inoperative.  So having to manual focus I was quite lucky to get any image at all.  As before, I used my Focus Magic software, my OnOne Phototune software, cropped then added sharpening..

Bald Eagle leaving nest - original

Bald Eagle leaving nest - edited

This third photograph is a juvenile Golden Eagle.  We were in Michigan visiting relatives.  My sister-in-law knew of this nest and took me over to the site.  He was about 65 feet off the ground, near the top of a large evergreen fir tree.  I had to set up on a little knoll about 150 feet away from the base of the tree to get an angle on the nest.  In this case I used my 1.4 converter on my 500mm lens.  I first used my Focus Magic again, then the OnOne Phototune software.  After cropping and playing with the lights and shadows, then sharpening I came out with the final image. 

Golden Eagle off the nest - original

Golden Eagle off the nest - edited

I hope you like the images and you may click on any of them to see an enlargement.  Both Focus Magic and Topaz Denoise are available on-line at pretty reasonalbe prices.  That also goes for OnOne’s Phototune.  That software, by the way, has nothing to do with music.  I believe they all have trial versions.

Happy birding!!