Gold Finch

All posts tagged Gold Finch

Saturday ~ April 15, 2017

Posted by Dave Updegraff on April 15, 2017
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , , .

Happy Saturday!

I have three images for you today that are leftovers from earlier shoots.  The one above was taken April 3rd and I think it is a Gold Finch although it looks a little different than the finches that stop by our feeders.  I’m not very good at identifying birds, I like to photograph them but not big on doing the research of what they are.  🙂

This Red-tailed Hawk was sitting on a pole when I drove past him.  I stopped up the road and got the camera set up, did a U-turn and came back slowly.  I was surprised and delighted that he posed for me (tolerated me) for several shots before becoming annoyed and flying off.

This is not a very good image.  But it is the first image I have ever made of a young owlet.  My friend Andreas has followed this mother owl for several years and has gotten many great shots of her and her offspring.  It was a very windy day when Jeanne and I stopped by the park and I only had my 300 mm lens so this image is heavily cropped and pretty grainy.   However you can tell it is a young owlet.  🙂

Yard work for me the rest of the day.

That’s it for today.  Enjoy your day and I hope you have a happy Easter.

Monday ~ May 30, 2016

Posted by Dave Updegraff on May 30, 2016
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , , , .

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Happy Memorial Day!

The freedoms and lifestyle we enjoy today are the result of sacrifices our Military Men and Women have made.  All gave some and some gave all.  God Bless The USA!

I have a bunch of birds for you today.  These are the last images of my May 20th walk at the wildlife reserve.  I’ve been riding my bike the last few days so I haven’t done any new photography.  🙂

You’ve seen some of these birds in recent posts but these are not the same images.

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I believe this is a Brown-headed Cow Bird.  I haven’t seen many of them this year.  A couple of years ago when I had all the feeders set up in the back yard I saw a lot of them.

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I never get tired of showing this little guy.  It was the first images I have ever made of this species.

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A common Robin up close and personal.  They are not nearly as skittish as many of the other birds.  I have been able to get really close to them, take their image and they sit perfectly still for me.

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It looks like a beautiful day weather wise.  I may go to the annual Memorial Day parade and make some photographs.  Parades are hard to photograph because there is so much background junk.

That’s it for today.  Enjoy your day and be careful.

Wednesday ~ July 22, 2015

Posted by Dave Updegraff on July 22, 2015
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , .

July-21-2015

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.

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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.

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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. 🙂

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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.

Wednesday ~ July 09, 2014

Posted by Dave Updegraff on July 9, 2014
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , , .

A Squirrel

Happy Wednesday!  ~  254

What a crappy day yesterday was for me, pun intended.  I don’t know if I ate something bad on Monday or if I just got in the way of a bug, but I had about 30 hours of misery yesterday.  I got to feeling better around 4:30 p.m. and was able to take a little nourishment.

I am not exactly feeling 100% today but certainly much better than I was this time yesterday.  Enough about that.

This little guy invaded the Bird Sanctuary yesterday evening while Jeanne and I were sitting out enjoying the sights and sounds.  Jeanne drew my attention to him as he started on the hill in our back yard and took little bounces, and he would serpentine with every move.

Golf Finch

The Bird Sanctuary is such good therapy for me.  I sat out there for a couple of hours with my camera and my thoughts and just watched the clouds and birds do their things.  Very peaceful for me.  I would have stayed out longer but Jeanne asked me if I wanted to try a little more food and I looked at my watch to discover it was 7:30 p.m.

Squirrel

I didn’t post a blog yesterday because I was down but I did get the Phantom back in the air Monday after a proper compass calibration.  It flew perfectly just like it was supposed to.  I didn’t take it far just around the back yard and did some maneuvers with it to see how it responded.  All is well.

Then last night I also took it up for a flight.  I didn’t venture far away from home base.  I still don’t trust it yet.  The gimbal had a few issues and I think I know what is causing that.  I’ll have to hook it back up to the computer and see if I can get that resolved.  One of these days I’ll show you some video but right now it’s pretty boring stuff.

That’s all I have for today.  I hope you enjoy your Wednesday.  Thanks as always for stopping by the blog and thanks again Melinda for your very kind words.  Be careful.

Wednesday ~ June 18, 2014

Posted by Dave Updegraff on June 18, 2014
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , .

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Happy Wednesday!  ~  275

More bird stuff today.  I’ve been perplexed because I haven’t been able to attract the kind of birds I want to and one of them is the Gold Finch.  Occasionally one will come around but they get chased off by the larger and more aggressive birds.  I was talking to my friend Steve today (he is really into birds as well) and he gave me some good things to think about.

So when I got back to Dubuque last evening I stopped at Menards to see what they had in the way of bird seed.  It is closer to stop there but they don’t have as large of selection that Theisens has.

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Anyway I got the idea to move the thistle feeder away from the rest of the feeders so the other birds wouldn’t bother the finch.  Since he is one of the few that actually eat the thistle I reasoned that he would be by himself at that feeder and perhaps he would tell his mates about it and then we’d have more finches.

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Well at first I was ready to declare success as he did indeed go to the thistle feeder but then he went to some of the other ones as well and didn’t seem to mind the bigger birds.  So much for my well thought out plan.  🙂

That’s all I have for you today.  I fresh out of wisdom, important things to talk about, and gossip.

Thanks for stopping by.  Enjoy your midweek hump day and be careful.