No new posts for a while

My apologies to my readers, due to the upcoming Christmas season it is unlikely that I will have time to write any new posts for a week or more. I will post again as soon as things on my day job slow down.  In the meantime feel free to explore and enjoy the older articles on this blog.

Enjoy,

Susan

Butterflies: Just pictures

I don't often get to photograph butterflies.  The one time that I did, I was at a butterfly park which enclosed the butterflies in a fine mesh gazebo.   Most of the time I don't see very many butterflies and in the wild they simply don't  hold still often unless they are warming up in the sun, feeding on a flower or drinking water on the ground.   Their little wings beat so fast that I would need a faster shutter speed than my current setting allows and by the time I have changed the setting on my camera the butterfly is usually gone.  This year however, I really lucked out and got some fairly decent pictures to share.

Little Blue

Painted Lady

Gray Copper

 Fritillary

Mourning Cloak

Milbert's Tortoiseshell

As I learn about these butterflies, I will let you know what I discover about these beauties.  In the meantime...

 Enjoy,

Susan

Silhouettes of birds: Head,bill and body shape

 









A bird's silhouette can tell you a lot about what kind of bird you are seeing, but there is more than one thing you need to pay attention to when you do.  In my first post on this subject, "Flight Silhouettes of birds: How to tell the difference," I compared the flight silhouette of an Eagle and a Raven to point out the differences in the shape of the tail and wings to help with identification.  However identification is much easier when two bird's are so large and dissimilar.  Identifying a bird's silhouette becomes more complicated when the bird is smaller in size and/or very similar to another species.  Nevertheless birds are much like people, in that they display a variety of very different physical characteristics.
                 

Say's Phoebe: A fly catcher

On the day that I spotted this flycatcher near the end of September, I had already decided sadly that migration had come to an end for this year.  It didn't help that the weather was all cloud and damp, and so my mood was as low as the clouds.  I was at the park near my work, staring at the pond, which was completely devoid of all but the fish in the water.  With no hope left of sighting waterfowl or any other bird species besides local finches and sparrows, I started walking slowly to work after only a couple of minutes, which meant I had to walk part way around the pond.

That's when I saw a bird dive into some bushes. Naturally, knowing I had the time, I stopped and waited to see if it would fly out and reveal itself.  Well it didn't, not at first.  It wasn't long before I made up my mind that I had likely just seen one of the finches that inhabit those bushes on a regular basis anyway.  With that thought in mind and because of my mood, I started walking abruptly right past the same bushes, only to flush the bird out unintentionally.

7 reasons why I'm engaged in bird photography

Juvenile Cooper's Hawk

As I am sure is obvious by now, I like to take pictures of the birds I see while out on bird watch.  One of the reasons I like to do so, is that I take them out and look at them quite often to remind myself of the joys of birdwatching, especially in winter when I usually don't see very many birds.  For me doing so falls into the same category as reading a favorite book over again.  However, there are other, more important reasons why I take pictures of birds and these are as follows: