"birding" fun

[birder]

Your grouse is a work if art in itself, Kevin, I'm sure you have many more beauties, showing the feather detail, reminds me a bit of a Chukar (Red-legged partridge) but your local birds are exotic ones, a birders dreams..
Curt your shots of the Pileateds are wonderful! It must have been a thrill they are such stately birds, like a Peregrine or a Loon...

[ashevilleangler]

Thanks Glen! You're right about Pileateds. I've been waiting to get a good look at just one. To have two of them perform for more than half an hour was simply amazing. Now I just need to find a better camera that I can actually afford. Right now I'm looking at a Fujifilm FinePix HS25EXR.

Curt

[Kevin WS]

Glen - the Powershot is a great little camera.

I carry one daily and have had many good shots from it!

I like your duck!

[Ashrunner]

Glen...I have yet to see a Mourning Cloak with that much yellow on its wings. Most of the cloaks I see here have have a lot of white in the wings, making it look a lot paler.

[Ashrunner]

For many years, I have tried to get a good image of an Orange-crowned Warbler. It's not that it is a hard to find bird, it's just never in a good spot for me to get a good shot. Plus...the bird won't hold still long enough for my camera to focus on it.

But yesterday I was able to find one in the apple tree in my back yard and was able to put camera to it and snap off about 100 shots. I figured at least one of the shots had to be good.

Well, I got two good shots...plus a number of decent shots.

[Kevin WS]

Your first picture is particularly good - i like the focus and composition.

[Don Boose]

Yes. Both images are good, but the first one is particularly evocative.

I like the image of the mourning cloak. I've never seen one in Carlisle, but last September we saw one on our first day at Cape May Point.

I was interested in Curt's comments about the Fuji finepix hs25exr and Kevin's comment about the Canon Powershot (SX50?)

I really want to get a better nature camera this year, before we go to Cape May. The issue becomes more relevant since my Nikon Coolpix P4 pocket camera has given up the ghost.

Ash convinces me that I need a lens of at least 300mm, and since I am not a professional photographer, don't want to buy more camera than I need or can deal with. Either of those two sound good. I'd be glad to hear from anyone with experience or an alternate recommendation.

Don

[birder]

Kevin thank you, you have wonderful images, nice to know you use a powershot sometimes. I have to say my camera is unpredictable I think it's the IS system sometimes you think it will be crisp, but disappointed, although some images are a surprise. It was a gift and has reopened photography for me, thinking about that lens now ( have to clear that one with Kim, though...)

Ash your Orange crowned looks just great, crisp as is the lep. We've had some Sara orange tips about, and anglewings, as you have too likely, but this is a banner year for Cloaks around this area...

Hi there Don , my camera is a PowerShot SX20is
the digital zoom goes to 80x but looses resolution which is already sometimes disappointing, thank heavens for the "delete" feature of digital cameras, you'd be taking alot of pics with the old film type for sure...If you want pics for ID purposes it is a very handy camera! I started out taking pics for basis of drawings, so the sometimes less than perfect clarity is not as big an issue in that case

[Don Boose]

Thanks for the input, Glen.

I like these images, especially the red wing. We had one in the back garden recently for the first time in years. Of course, there are lots of them at Cape May in the marshes and fields.

What is bird number 5? A tree swallow?

Don

[birder]

Very close Don, one of the 6 pairs of Violet-Green Swallows nesting on our house