Peach-faced Lovebirds
The feral population of this African species around Phoenix, AZ, is now countable on your ABA Life List. This pair of Peach-faced Lovebirds cuddled at the Gilbert Water Ranch on January 3, 2008.
Nikon D200, Nikkor AF-S 300/2.8, Gitzo 1325 tripod, RRS BH-55 head, Sidekick, ISO 200, 1/250th second at f/10
Abert’s Towhee
Nikon d300, Nikkor AF-S 300/2.8 lens with TC20E III (@x), ISO1600, 1/160th second at f/5.6, tripod
I’m not much of a backyard bird photographer, even though birds are a prominent part of our lives. We scatter seed every day for the doves and quail, and my wife has an addiction for feeding mealworms to the mockingbirds, thrashers, and towhees. This Abert’s Towhee is one of a pair that hang out all day in our yard on most days of the week.
If our yard wasn’t so cluttered with plants that block almost all my site lines I’d think about setting up some perches in good light to take advantage of these birds when I don’t have the time to visit the Water Ranch or Boyce Thompson Arboretum for more serendipitous encounters with more wild subjects.
This image is about as close as I’ve come to a baited set-up shot, even though it wasn’t set up nor baited. It was about 20 minutes before sunset when I noticed the towhee perched on a random ornamental branch on the ground a few feet from the patio. Luckily the camera was already mounted on the tripod nearby and I quickly dragged it over to the patio door, cranked the ISO to to 1600 and set the lens wide open at f/5.6. I didn’t have time to carefully frame my image (hence the unfortunately clipped tail) – I just made sure the auto focus had locked on to the head of the towhee and then got off a quick burst of three frames before the towhee moved elsewhere.
I’m quite happy with the quality of these results. ISO 1600 is two stops faster than the grainy B&W film I used to use, and three stops faster than the very grainy Kodachrome 200 I considered my high speed color option in the days of film. And yet this image looks remarkably clean with little visible noise (the digital equivalent of film grain).
More surprising is how good this looks while being shot through the plain glass of the patio door! I’m glad I risked this shot even though the odds were stacked against quality results.
House Finch on Ocotillo
Nikon D300, Nikkor 300/2.8 AF-S lens plus TC20E III (2x), Gitzo 1325 tripod, RRS BH-55 head, Sidekick
As I’m sure I’ve written here before I rarely head out with a particular subject or image in mind. Instead, my approach to bird photography (and most other subjects) is to go someplace I expect or hope to find appropriate subjects and then walk around and look for something interesting.
That was the case with this House Finch that encountered on December 21, 2012 at the Veterans Oasis Park in Chandler, AZ. A friend was in the area to escape the cold at the Grand Canyon where he works and I introduced him to VOP so we could work with the ducks on the main pond. With my arthritis I can only sit in one place for a limited amount of time, so after a while of ducking around I set off around the pond hoping it might push some of the Redheads and ring-necks in close to my friend’s position.
That’s when I came upon a couple of House Finches in a small garden area just off the sidewalk. I loved the look of the spiny ocotillo branches and immediately stopped, hoping that setting down the tripod wouldn’t flush the finches. I was in luck, at least for a few moments. My camera was already mounted on the tripod, set for the bright light, and in aperture-priority auto exposure mode. All I needed to do was lock focus, fine tune composition, and depress the shutter.
Being ready for a chance encounter greatly increases the odds of getting a good image. I’ve been a photographer for a long time (40+ years) and I know my gear and trust it. That allows me to concentrate on the subject and light without worrying about the mechanics of the gear. Practice and experience pay off when you stumble on something worth shooting, so get out asa much as you can and get comfortable with your camera and other equipment in as many situations as you can.
Least Grebe
Nikon D300, 300/2.8 plus TC20E III (2x), ISO 1600, 1/160th second at f/5.6, tripod
The thrill of birding for most people is the chance to see rarities – birds with a limited range and/or small numbers that aren’t seen every day. Vagrants are birds that show up far outside their normal range and are the cause for great excitement within the birding community.
A Least Grebe (Tachybaptus dominicus) discovered on Saturday 1/19/2013 in the Sun Lakes community of Chandler, AZ is such a bird. Birders wanting to add this species to their Life List normally need to visit the far reaches of the Rio Grande Valley in extreme south Texas where this primarily Mexican species breeds. So a report of one on the southeast edge of Phoenix brought out active birders at dawn the morning of Sunday 1/20/2013.
I was among them, following the standard procedure of chasing a reported rarity as soon as possible to maximize the chances of seeing it. There is no guarantee that a vagrant will stay around, and there’s also a worry that access to the place where a rarity has been seen will be lost when someone does something stupid to anger whoever controls the place.
Lucky for me the bird was still there, and the local residents were friendly and inviting of visitors. We learned from one of the residents that “this little duck” as they had been calling it had been around since before Christmas. (This reminds me of the Northern Jacana that had been hanging out at a gold course in Casa Grande, AZ for months before a birder discovered it and spread the word).
Least Grebe and Mallard
Nikon D300, 300/2.8 plus TC20E III (2x), ISO 1600, 1/125th second at f/5.6, tripod
This shot showing the grebe confronting a drake Mallard is a good comparison of size. The Sibley Guide to Birds gives 9.5″ length, 11″ wingspan, and 4 ounces as the size parameters for the Least Grebe – those dimensions are smaller than those of the ubiquitous Mourning Dove!
The pond where this grebe is hanging out has no covering vegetation along the edges which is surprising. The other places this bird has occurred in AZ over the years have all had lots of edge cover that made viewing difficult. The open conditions meant clean photography, but the small size of the grebe and the size of the pond made it difficult to get much of an image even with my 300mm and 2x optics. I also had to deal with low light levels because the pond is shaded by buildings and large trees. SO, I was shooting at ISO 1600 with the lens wide open to get even modest shutter speeds like 1/160th second. And I still had to do some severe cropping to come up with these images.
Least Grebe
Nikon D300, 300/2.8 plus TC20E III (2x), ISO 800, 1/320th second at f/8, tripod
By waiting for a higher sun to put more light on the pond I was able to reduce the ISO 800 and stop down one stop, but that also put the grebe in harsh light.
This is the third Least Grebe I’ve seen in AZ since 1994, and the farthest north in the state. When I recover from the cold I’ve been battling since this day I plan to return for more photos – if the bird is still there and if birders and photographers haven’t worn out our welcome.
Sora
Nikon D300, Nikkor 300/2.8 AF-S plus TC20E III (2x), tripod, ISO 1600, 1/160th second at f/5.6
Just last week I posted about the “swamp” wet area at the Gilbert Water Ranch where I found a vagrant Rufous-backed Robin. That encounter was on Thursday, January 3, 2013. The birders who followed my report on Friday got to see the robin in the morning and in the afternoon, along with some other interesting birds. So I went back on Saturday to spend more time in the early hours and try for better photos of the robin. I hung around for a couple of hours with a few other people hoping for an appearance by the robin but it didn’t show, and it hasn’t been seen since as far as I know.
But I did have some fun with a pair of Sora rails that worked the swampy ground extracting worms while being completely indifferent to those of us watching from a few feet away on the pavement. This image is full frame – no cropping. Soras are only 8.75 inches long, so even with 600mm of focal length I was very close to this carefree bird.
My Saturday visit was plagued by lots of foot traffic from family groups, joggers, and even a long string of kids on racing bikes. So I went back again today (Tuesday 1/8/13) when I knew there’d be almost no traffic – especially since the temps were in the 40′s at dawn.
I was shocked to find the ground much drier under the trees along the paved path, and also was surprised to find a workman dragging large cut branches along the walkway. I asked what was going on and he told me they were cutting back a lot of the trees and brush at the robin location because they had to fix the “giant leak” at that spot.
GWR cut tree
So, goodbye swamp and goodbye birds.
