Post your Bird Portraits

GeoffSFAs10 wrote in post #18230207
That first owl shot is great!!

This is how my day went with the yard birds...even the red shouldered hawk was the same pose haha

I can identity with that Geoff ! You are lucky you had the light to catch their tails - I can't even remember what light looks like at this stage of winter. I don't believe anything is is as grey or persistent as the dull Ontario sky in winter. Admittedly the sun did shine today after I left the birding area, but we will be back to grey tomorrow.

I tried to photograph Bluejays yesterday but even those images were dull and got consigned to my trash bin.

Today was the first time Ive seen the sun in probably 3 days. Winter can be rough here as well. I generally despise it.

MedicineMan4040 wrote in post #18230143
Perfect in every way. You have the magic of proximity.

That's it exactly, Robert. Being close is everything (and right after or equal to quality of light).

I wish I could always be as close as Jeff and you seem to be. How does one use a blind in a public park where people already look funny at me, being a middle-aged woman crawling in the dirt with a long lens?

Levina de Ruijter wrote in post #18230416
That's it exactly, Robert. Being close is everything (and right after or equal to quality of light).

I wish I could always be as close as Jeff and you seem to be. How does one use a blind in a public park where people already look funny at me, being a middle-aged woman crawling in the dirt with a long lens?

Let 'em look funny!
Hey, you live in apartment or condo? In big city?
There's always the roof! In some of our big cities the tenants often make/build gardens on top of large apartment buildings.
Just thinking you could have your own bird studio on top

Now have a laugh. A couple of months ago I was walking around the neighborhood in the city and a distant neighbor had a dead dogwood, but beautifully dead with all kinds of gnarly character and holes and I discovered it was hollow.
Next thing you know I'm knocking on the door and asking the neighbor (never met him before) if I could buy a dead tree in the yard. He looked at me crazy (funny eh) but by then I was pulling up bird pictures on my phone/Flickr to show him. He actually liked looking at them and I explained I have a bird studio in the backyard=perches/bokeh​. We walked to the tree and he said if I cut it down and move it I could have it.
OK, this tree is hollow but I'd guess still around 1200 pounds.
So, again this is before I went to Panama, I asked the guys who work our properties if they wanted a challenge
Too their boss Jose over to show the tree.
Fast forward a couple of months.
I'm in the screened in porch looking out at one of the perch set ups and suddenly I see the dead dogwood!!!!!
Remember it was hollow. They dug a hole and installed a metal pole. Used a small back-hoe to lift the dogwood in place and then lowered it onto the pole ha!
Already the squirrels are going in and out of the holes and the Downy woodpecker is chipping away at it.
If your curious I'll take a pic this afternoon and post it up

MedicineMan4040 wrote in post #18230492
Next thing you know I'm knocking on the door and asking the neighbor (never met him before) if I could buy a dead tree in the yard.

Already the squirrels are going in and out of the holes and the Downy woodpecker is chipping away at it.
If your curious I'll take a pic this afternoon and post it up

Nothing ventured nothing gained. What a great story and outcome Now wait for the raccoons to move in too. .

MedicineMan4040 wrote in post #18230492
Let 'em look funny!
Hey, you live in apartment or condo? In big city?
There's always the roof! In some of our big cities the tenants often make/build gardens on top of large apartment buildings.
Just thinking you could have your own bird studio on top

Now have a laugh. A couple of months ago I was walking around the neighborhood in the city and a distant neighbor had a dead dogwood, but beautifully dead with all kinds of gnarly character and holes and I discovered it was hollow.
Next thing you know I'm knocking on the door and asking the neighbor (never met him before) if I could buy a dead tree in the yard. He looked at me crazy (funny eh) but by then I was pulling up bird pictures on my phone/Flickr to show him. He actually liked looking at them and I explained I have a bird studio in the backyard=perches/bokeh​. We walked to the tree and he said if I cut it down and move it I could have it.
OK, this tree is hollow but I'd guess still around 1200 pounds.
So, again this is before I went to Panama, I asked the guys who work our properties if they wanted a challenge
Too their boss Jose over to show the tree.
Fast forward a couple of months.
I'm in the screened in porch looking out at one of the perch set ups and suddenly I see the dead dogwood!!!!!
Remember it was hollow. They dug a hole and installed a metal pole. Used a small back-hoe to lift the dogwood in place and then lowered it onto the pole ha!
Already the squirrels are going in and out of the holes and the Downy woodpecker is chipping away at it.
If your curious I'll take a pic this afternoon and post it up

Love the story, Robert. And yes, I would love to see pics of the dead dogwood tree!!!

I do live in a city, in an apartment. However, this is the Netherlands, there is no way one can get to the roof of buildings. Unless you have a condo or live in an old building with an attic from which you can crawl unto the roof. I would already be happy with a balcony, but my apartment is new and is built in such a way it hardly requires heating (even in harsh winters I don't need to turn on the central heating and apparently a house with a balcony is less energy saving. I do have a kind of indoor greenhouse-like thingy, but believe me, no bird would ever come into that!

Peter2516 wrote in post #18218339

Hosted photo: posted by Peter2516 in
./showthread.php?p=182​18339&i=i137675429
forum: Birds

Wow, Peter ... Just saw this photo today. Terrific shot.

N.V.M. wrote in post #18230605

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/Py79​sL spipe by N.V.M., on Flickr

Wonderful isolation on the BG.

Lester Wareham wrote in post #18230616
Wonderful isolation on the BG.

the 500mm does that, lol.

Lester Wareham wrote in post #18230623

Wow! Amazing photo.

You have to wonder how it caught numbers two three and four once it had the first in its beak!

Lester Wareham wrote in post #18230623

Great catch by both of you!

Gold Finch

Gregsiem wrote in post #18230630
Wow! Amazing photo.

You have to wonder how it caught numbers two three and four once it had the first in its beak!

I think quite a few birds work this trick with various prey types, apparently I believe they have hoked raspy tongue, but it still seems fairly amazing.