Birds 2012

[aster]

Hi Argonaut,

The starling has taken me aback with its great colour palette. You brought some excellent variety of birds to the forum pages..

Thanks for sharing.


Hi Mark,

A smashing series from you yet again. : )

I enjoyed them all and thank you for including their scientific names for easier identification...


Thanks for sharing,

Yildiz

[mvanrheenen]

Hi Mark,

A smashing series from you yet again. : )

I enjoyed them all and thank you for including their scientific names for easier identification...


Thanks for sharing,

Yildiz

Thanks Yildiz and you're welcome. I always mention the scientific names for it makes it a lot easier for me to find the common English name for the bird. The Dutch tend to name the birds after the sound they make. That makes it hard to relate the name to one the English use

Mark

[Argonaut]

Tanzania continued: little birds today. By coincidence, first up are Barn Swallows. There are several subspecies and this one has an all-white chest and belly compared to the pinkish color here in the states. a580, Sigma 400, 1/200, f9, ISO 400 (It was an overcast day but I had the motionless safari van as a tripod.)

It can drive you crazy trying to distinguish among all the yellow and black weavers. If you go to the Wiki they have two photos for the Vitelline Masked Weaver - one is the real thing and the other is a Village Weaver! Anyway, there are so many Y&B weavers that the trick is to get them doing something other than just posing. Therefore, this Vitelline is a record of my trip but not suitable for the cover of Nat'l Geo. a580, Sigma 400, 1/1250. f6.3, ISO 800.

The Speke's Weaver, OTOH, obliged me by pausing only a few feet away with some nesting material in its beak. We were at a picnic spot and I couldn't follow it to the nest - watching these guys weave their nests is a treat. a580, Sigma 400, 1/2000, f6.3, ISO 1600.

051_Barn Swallow (Hirundo rustica)_120226_DSC01301_a580.jpg

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048_Vitelline Masked Weaver (Ploceus vitellinus)_120225_DSC01245_a580.jpg

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052_Speke's Weaver (Ploceus spekei)_120226_DSC01314_a580.jpg

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[mvanrheenen]

Sjeez Argonaut, you made me very jealous with these images. This is completely up my ally. Very interesting birds.

Mark

[Argonaut]

Mark - 90% of the battle is being there and being familiar enough with the equipment to be ready when the bird is there. The longer you can be there and the more you are familiar with bird behavior, the better, but on a trip like this you can't control the time and you can't wait long for the bird to "behave". So, the readier you are when the moment comes, the more photos you'll get. I think I averaged about 3-4 keepers (photos I'd show to my fellow birders) a day on this trip. That's a total of about 100 out of 2,200 taken in a place where there are a lot of interesting birds (lots of near misses and dupes, but still, only 100 finalists). And out of that, I might have 5-10 that I consider really good enough to print and hang on the wall.

The rest is post-processing and if I can learn it, anybody can.

[sury]

Wonderful shots and excellent narrative. Made me feel I was there. Thank you for making the images more interesting and the post more
informative.

With best regards,
Sury

[mvanrheenen]

Excellent advice. I almost shoot with the same cam/lens combo exclusively, so I know my gear well. I always check my settings before a shoot too. Getting to know your subject and practicing a lot with the same kind if photography helped me get my keepers up really quickly. I just shoot birds every week since October last year. Been doing pretty well so far if I say so myself. Didn't gave the creatures any thought before that. Now I'm hooked!

That's about my average too. I have 5 to 6 images from around 250-300 shots per 3 hour shoots. Bursting is bliss (and hell in post )

Mark

[Dr. Harout]

Argonaut, you are making me jealous...

[mvanrheenen]

\0/ Finally spotted a bird I wanted to see for so long, and it lives really close to my house too \0/

Images aren't good, but I'm so happy I've seen one in real life I don't really care right now!

#1 - Green Woodpecker (Picus viridis)



#2 - Green Woodpecker (Picus viridis)

[Greg Beetham]

Great Weavers Argonaut, and not bad Swallows either, I was a bit taken aback by the very long tails, at first I thought they must be a different Barn Swallow to the ones I’m familiar with here but I looked up my bird book and it seems they moult those extra long ones off while in OZ probably because of the nesting they seem to undertake while here, I remember when I went too school (in a more rural setting) there was a very large seasonal colony building their mud nests over the top of old nests in a couple of big concrete drains under the road, they are probably still there periodically today.

Nice work Mark, I know the feeling of accomplishment to finally ‘get’ another one, how many species have you jotted down in your capture note book now?
Greg

[mvanrheenen]

Nice work Mark, I know the feeling of accomplishment to finally ‘get’ another one, how many species have you jotted down in your capture note book now?
Greg

That's quite an interesting question Greg. Although I try to photograph all birds I see, I don't usually do that for the birds I see every day, like the many swans, geese, gulls, ducks etc. Counting the ones I did photograph and were kind of "special" to me, I hit around the 60 mark now. The great thing about that is the fact these birds were all spotted and/or photographed in a radius of just 5 kilometers from my house! I can only imagine how much I have found in a year or 2

I went out today and spotted another "new" species. Will post them later (after all the sorting and PP work).

Mark

[mvanrheenen]

Like I said in my previous post, I was out again this morning for a relaxing 2,5 hours of bird watching.

(Because of the outdated limitations on this forum for size of images, I had to post smaller ones. All images are clickable for original (and best!) size.)

#1 - Eastern Rosella (Platycercus eximius)

The Rosella is definitely a non-native species around these parts. I think this one has escapped somewhere and landed near my house. I saw it on my way. A bad image, but a curious find.



#2 & 3 - Common Whitethroat (Sylvia communis)

New one for me (counting only native species)! The Whitethroat is a common bird around these parts, but because all the LBJ';s look the same, I think I haven't noticed this one before.

[mvanrheenen]

#4 - Reed Warbler (Acrocephalus scirpaceus)

I saw a lot of these guys again today. Great LBJ's!



#5 - Reed Bunting (Emberiza schoeniclus)

Definitely my best bird images as of yet. I'm very pleased with the result. This is what all the hard work and hours of bird tracking should accumulate to. My day is made Click for the original (=best)!



#6 - Reed Bunting (Emberiza schoeniclus)



Mark

[Birma]

Well done Mark! More great birds - I have a soft spot for all of those LBJs I really like the birds you capture in full song mode, great stuff.

[mvanrheenen]

Thank you Birma.

I was just informed that the LBJ I identified as a Marsh Warbler is actually a Reed Warbler. These two birds are only disinguised by their song, because they are identical in appearance.

Mark