Happy Wednesday!

I decided to sit out on the patio last evening after dinner.  The temperature was moderate and a light breeze made being outdoors and watching nature far more appealing than watching TV.

I have scaled back on my bird feeding during the summer for several reasons.  However I do keep fresh water in the bird bath and the birds love it.  Usually if I’m sitting on the patio they won’t come to the bird bath so last night I sat close to the house behind some other chairs with my long lens and had a ball capturing bird images.

I have not seen the Cardinal around for sometime.  I saw him last night for the first time up by the trees.  I was just about to call it a night when he showed up at the bird bath.  I have never seen him at the bird bath let alone photograph him there.  It was a real treat for me.

I always enjoy photographing a Cardinal and my friend Ron enjoys them a lot so I have a couple of images for you today Ron.

The only feeder I still have out is the thistle feeder for the Gold Finches.  They are such a pretty bird and I really enjoy watching them.

The bird bath has become a busy place this summer.  It is used by all sorts of birds and there is usually a waiting line to use it.  A lot of birds just use it for a drink but the last few hot days there were lot of birds getting cooled off by taking a full bath in it. 🙂

So it was an enjoyable evening doing two of the things I really enjoy.  Watching nature and taking photographs.  I shot 474 images and culled those down to 67 keepers.  There were actually more keepers but they were all of the same thing.  I used the Nikon D4 (which will rip off 57 shots in nothing flat) fitted with the Sigma 150 – 600 mm lens at ISO 400 1/640 sec @ f6.5.

That’s it for today.  I hope you enjoyed the bird images.  Thanks for stopping by the blog.  Enjoy your day and be careful.