Yes, More Birds!

It wasn’t long until I posted more photos of birds. I like birds. Well, I think it’s more the relaxing area in which to photograph birds is what I like more, especially on days when there are not many people.

Yesterday was a beautiful day here in Vancouver. The sun was shining, the clouds were late in rolling in and people buzzed around the West End. Yes, they are still trucking in snow for Cypress for their Olympic Events. They were trucking it in from Manning Park, but now they are trucking it in from another location. Anyway….

The lighting was pretty good as the sun is higher in the sky these days. Doesn’t seem like winter though, but that’s ok, I was getting tired of the sun not being very high or out for very long. I do miss the snow though, we haven’t been able to hit the local mountains for ski/snowboarding as much as we did last year.

I’ve been working on my Bird In Flight photos. The Canon 7D helps me capture many more frames per second that my Canon XSi did and the results tend to show that. Now I just have to work on getting the sharpest photos I can and then experiment with using even higher shutter speeds to freeze the action better.

A female Common Merganser. They always seem to be smiling, even their male counterparts. Just the way their beak turns up I guess but it gives the photo a bit more personality. Usually at Lost Lagoon the light isn’t great and shadows tend to be cast over the birds. I was glad she swam into a brighter spot which helped bring out some more detail.

A juvenile Great Blue Heron. How do I know its a juvenile? I’ve read that the longer the feathers/hair on their front (chest) area the older they are. This guy didn’t have any, he was also a bit smaller than most of the herons I see. He flew in while I was feeding some ducks, stood around for a while and pulled out a couple of small fish. I just loved the lighting on the side of his body, along with the water’s ripples reflecting light.

Yup, more bird in flight shots. The more I feed the ducks, the more ducks come over to be fed. It’s a great way to set up for bird in flight shots too. Get the ducks all worked up by feeding them millet and the louder the commotion they make, the better chance of getting other ducks to fly in.

The cool thing about posting photos of birds is that the next time you go out after reading this post (or any of my bird posts) you’ll look at the birds and say, “Hey! I know that bird, it’s a such and such bird”. Well, at least I would like to think that you might say something like that!

Here’s hoping the clouds part and I’ll head back outside with my camera!