Photographing the tiny birds

I love getting out in the field and photographing raptors when I can find them, but there is something to be said about shooting the tiny birds, too.  It is such a challenge.  Most of them can only be found in dense brush or small trees.  I have found that I get the best results if I just use only a single focus point when using my Canon &D Mk II.  If I use more like the five-point or nine-point, there is too much clutter in the branches to get the bird in focus.  Of course, with the single-point, the trick is to get that fleeting little bird in the viewfinder.  Also for your information, I use my Tamron 150-600mm G2 lens.  For my settings I shoot Shutter Priority at usually 1/1600 or 1/2000 sec.  I set the ISO at Auto, at a maximum of 1600, and the aperture just floats pretty much wide open.  I keep my thumb on the big dial on the back of the camera, so I can adjust the Exposure Value quickly if needed.

My post-processing is quite simple.  It is a secret recipe handed down.  I just crop for composition, then adjust the lighting and/or the contrast, and perhaps tweak the color saturation.  I then adjust the sharpening to compensate for any loss when I crop close.

I have been able to come upon a couple of areas where I have been successful in spotting several species of those tiny variety.  Here are a few of those, plus a few of my other images that I captured the past ten days.  I hope you enjoy.

The Pine Warbler is somewhat rare for the San Angelo area, although they are spotted occasionally.  This one surprised me when I was observing an area of cat-tails near Lake Nasworthy.  It is the first one of this species that I have seen this season.

Pine Warbler

Nearby in the same area, this House Wren popped into view.  Wrens sometime give me a hard time in trying to identify them.  This was early morning, and at first I thought it was a Marsh Wren, but after perusing my Stokes’ guide I was able to discern the correct ID.

House Wren

I got real lucky with the light when photographing this Bewick’s Wren.  Again, we were early getting to San Angelo State Park, and the morning sun was at a perfect angle.

Bewick’s Wren

The goldfinches are starting to arrive.

American Goldfinch

The Lincoln’s Sparrow is one of my favorites of that species.  Easily identified with that beige coloring in the breast.

Lincoln’s Sparrow

Another easily identified sparrow, the White-crowned.

White-crowned Sparrow

We were in an area favored by the Spotted Towhee when this Green-tailed Towhee showed.  I was quite thrilled as it is another rarity here in the Concho Valley.  The wind was blowing a bit, and it fluffed up it’s crown.

Green-tailed Towhee

As I said, we were in the area so this Spotted Towhee decided it needed to show off a little bit, too.  He appeared on an upper branch so I was able to get a nice background of the nice blue sky.

Spotted Towhee

Before we left to come home, I spotted this Red-tailed Hawk making a fly-by.  I couldn’t resist getting this last shot.

Red-tailed Hawk

That is all for this post.  I hope you enjoyed my narrative and the photographs.  I appreciate any and all comments you might have.

Enjoy the snowfall. 🙂

Happy Birding!!

Carolina Wrens

First, this will probably be my last post until I return from my travels to the Big Bend.  We are leaving Monday morning and will return Friday.  Hopefully, I will post something next Saturday.

Digging back through my archives, I again found a few gems that you might enjoy looking at.  These are the Carolina Wrens (Catherpes mexicanus).  I again, photographed these birds at the Hummer House in Christoval, Texas.  I think I will do a post about the Hummer House in the future, since I have been talking about it so much.  Some you that reside here in Texas would probably be interested in visiting.  Carolina Wrens reside here the year around.

1. Carolina Wren

2. Carolina Wren

3. Carolina Wren

These were all photographed in the spring of 2008.  I had not yet purchased my 7D so I was using my older Canon EOS 40D.  I had it attached to my Canon 500mm lens with a 1.4 tele-converter.  I mounted it on my Manfrotto tripod with a Wimberley gimbal head, and was sitting inside the viewing center.  The images were all captured through the plate glass window.The basic exposures were all identical, aperture priority, center weighted metering, ISO 800, f7.1.  Only the shutter speed varied from 1/125 to 1/250 sec.

In the third photo, you can see the advantage of using only one focus point.  There was considerable grass growth, but I was able to put that lone focus point on the bird with no problem, as you can see.

In the second photo you might notice a metal band on the leg.  Dan and Cathy Brown, the owners of Hummer House, regularly invite the Concho Valley Bird Banders to come and do their work for research.

Well, again, I hope you enjoy these images of another cute bird.  Click on any of them to see enlargements.