Bird Feeders

All posts tagged Bird Feeders

Monday ~ July 28, 2014

Posted by Dave Updegraff on July 28, 2014
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , .

July-27-2014

Happy Monday:  ~  235

Sorry, more birds.  I’m dealing with some health issues right now and just didn’t feel like getting outside to capture any other types of images.  Besides, I love sitting on the patio and watching the birds come and go.

This image and the last image will show you why I’m spending $70 every week on bird seed.  Sometimes there are as many as 40-50 birds around the feeding line, both on the feeders and on the ground eating the leftovers.

I’m not complaining, I get more from watching the birds than I’m giving.  🙂

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This is not a tack sharp image.  But I was lucky enough to capture this little guy just the instant before he took flight.

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Another one of the feeders with standing room only.

That’s it for today.  Thanks for stopping by the blog.  Enjoy your day and be careful.

Tuesday ~ June 10, 2014

Posted by Dave Updegraff on June 10, 2014
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , , .

June-09-2014

Happy Tuesday!  ~  283

Busy week ahead with employee benefit meetings scheduled for two days and then getting caught up from being gone for those two days.

Talk about unintended consequences.  This is an image of one.  This little guy apparently lives in the neighborhood and almost ever evening and early morning he comes to the bottom of the feeders and has a snack of the spilled birdseed on the ground.  It’s fun to watch him.  I was taking some images for my bird feeder project when I noticed him coming from my neighbor’s yard.  He approached very slowly stopping every few feet to listen and then he would hop a few more feet until he reached his goal.  He would eat some seed and then perk his head and move his ears all around listening for any sound of danger.  Fun to watch.

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This is the image I used for yesterday’s project.  Just a lowly sparrow but I like how he is looking down at the water and that he has some water on his beak.  I’m sure some of you are getting tired of all the birds (my daughter for one) but bare with me I promise I’ll shoot other things as well.  It’s just a lot of enjoyment now watching the birds and the excitement of an occasional finch or cardinal.  Precious few cardinals for sure, I’ve seen one since I installed the bird feeders and he only stopped long enough to look over the layout and then he moved on. 😦

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Finally I’ll leave you with an image of this little finch.  They are a pretty bird and with the bright yellow coloration, they are easy to spot when they are in the neighborhood.

Yesterday after work I met a lady, who provides day care for a little Mexican boy, at one of the parks in Maquoketa to shoot some images of him.  His Mother works at the Mexican Restaurant in town and in conversation one day several months ago I mentioned that I had seen her walking on the sidewalk with this little boy and wondered if he was her Son.

After confirming he was I learned that she didn’t have any images of him other than the ones she had taken with her phone.  I told her that I would take some images of him when the weather got warmer and yesterday evening was that sometime.  He is a  cute little guy but very shy.  Only 2 and a half years old.  The day care lady did her best to get him to smile and of the 175 images I took, he smiled in two of them.  🙂

Anyway it was fun to do that and I’ll give her a couple of nice prints of him.   I guess you’d call that a win-win.  The joy for me of taking pictures and the joy for her to finally have a nice picture of her son.

That’s it for today.  Thanks for stopping by the blog.  Enjoy your day and be careful.  Cloudy most of the day today so sunscreen is optional. 🙂

Sunday ~ June 08, 2014

Posted by Dave Updegraff on June 8, 2014
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , .

June-07-2014

Happy Sunday!  ~  285

Images from the backyard bird feeders for today.  I’m getting a lot of sparrows, grackles, red-wing blackbirds, and an occasional bunny like this morning.  I saw a cardinal fly by a couple of days ago and we will get the occasional finch but so far I have a back yard inundated with the common birds of Iowa.  Right now I really don’t care because it is so enjoyable just sitting on the back patio with my camera and watching the interaction of all the birds.  Very interesting.

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Yesterday I did the normal Saturday morning tasks of mowing and trimming the grass.  Then I had to get some birdseed, oil for the mower, and a garden hose to wash all the bird poop off the patio.  🙂

Needless to say I bought another feeder (for cardinals.)   I thought photography was expensive but feeding birds is getting right up there.

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I’m enjoying my backyard bird feeder project.  I’m only 7 days into it but having a good time with it.  So we’ll see how far it goes.  I gave myself a time limit of at least a month so at the end of June I’ll decide if I want to do more.  I put a quick link on the right side of the blog if you’re interested.

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Jeanne and I went looking for some furniture later in the afternoon.  There was only one store that we got to as it was getting close to 6:00 p.m. and we didn’t find exactly what we were looking for so we’ll give it another go this afternoon.

That’s it for today.  I hope you enjoy your Sunday.  Thanks for stopping by and be careful.  Don’t forget the sunscreen.

Sunday ~ May 25, 2014

Posted by Dave Updegraff on May 25, 2014
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , .

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Happy Sunday!  ~  299

Typical Saturday for me.  Even though I had Friday off it was still pretty much a veg day.  I had three basic projects that I wanted to accomplish yesterday and only one of them got done.

After spending some time with Andreas last Saturday and having so much fun shooting the small birds I had decided to get some bird feeders for our back yard.  The problem with our set up is there are no trees close to the house.  They are all at the back of the property.  We did that so that the our kids and their friends would have an uninterrupted play ground for bad-mitten, croquet, and other yard games.  Now of course it would be nice to have some small trees up close so the birds could set on them.  I’ll have to figure out something.

The one project that I did get done was to test the Tamron 150 – 600 mm lens.  My neighbor also has a lot of bird feeders so I was standing in my yard shooting some Finches in his back yard.  He came over for a visit and it turns he is an avid bird watcher as well.  He used to photograph some of the birds he watched but now he just enjoys watching them.  He has many bird feeders and has had everywhere he has lived before.  He gave me some good ideas of where I could put the bird feeders and what kind to get.

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Another part of this story is that I have never used a gimbal on my tripod.  By looking at them I couldn’t see the advantage of them over the ball head that I now use.  That is until I spent some time last Saturday watching Andreas use his gimbal head.  A light bulb went off in my head (there was no permanent damage done.)  So that is what they are good for.  I found an inexpensive one on Amazon.com and I was also trying it out this weekend.  WOW!  Talk about a Duh moment.  Why haven’t I done this before.  It makes shooting wildlife so much easier.  I’m hooked.

Jeanne and I have had several discussions in the past about bird feeders and the whole feeding the birds thing.  She had some good reservations and so we talked some more Saturday about it.  She said she would go with me to look at them, which was helpful.  Being so impulsive, there was no telling what I would have come back with.

We bought a couple of feeders and a pole to hang them from.  Some bird feed and few other items and then went home.  When we got home we discovered we had left part of the stand in the shopping cart so back to the store.  Fortunately an honest person had turned it in to customer service so we got it back without having to buy another one.  🙂

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After we got everything filled and set up, I sat close to the house in the shade with my tripod and within 15 minutes we had our first Finch.  Like Jeanne said, they know where other feeders are, they’ll learn where ours is.

So it was an enjoyable afternoon watching the feeders and shooting the ubiquitous Robins in the yard.   I have not made a final judgement on the Tamron lens.  It seems to be sharp when set up correctly for the lighting conditions.  Very fast on focusing and much quieter than my Sigma.   Right now I would have to say the Sigma is a tad bit sharper but there is still a lot of testing and experimenting to be done.

Thanks for stopping by the blog.  Enjoy your Sunday and be careful.