Project 365: Jan 31, 2008

Strangely, the thing I start out intending to photograph is often not the shot I end up keeping for the day.

(P.S. Please forgive my slacker ways. Work kicked my arse this week and I missed a couple days of posting).

Project 365: Jan 27, 2008

This is my favorite house in the world right now! It's on the older side of the town I live in. Nice, big, established trees, unique houses (as opposed to the cookie-cutter newer neighborhoods with 3 or 4 different models and that's it), corner lot, gorgeous stone work... If this house ever goes up for sale, I want it!!

Photographing dark colored birds

I love the slate colored dark eyed junco. It's a winter bird to the US, coming down from Canada to spend the cold months with us. They like to hang out low to the ground, hopping around and looking for food. Their perky mannerisms can warm even the coldest day.

This is my first winter watching the dark eyed juncos, and I've wanted to get a nice photo of one of these snowbirds. It's been a challenge. They have dark gray to black feathers on the upper half of their body, and white feathers below. For some reason, in most of my previous shots, their dark feathers came out noisy and lacking detail. I think it's due to the fact that the lower half of the tree in my yard, where they like to hang out, is usually in the shade, so that plus the winter light makes for low shutter speeds, and I just couldn't get enough light into the camera. Plus, I usually am shooting through the glass of my windows, degrading the quality of the shot.

This time, I opened the window up to shoot. It was chilly but I finally got a decent shot of my snowbirds!



I think the main keys were good lighting and shooting unobstructed.

Red Tailed Hawk and Great Horned Owl

It was a big day in the back yard!

The Northern Harrier was back, [edit - scratch that! It was a red tailed hawk!] and I was able to get a second chance to practice focusing when taking in-flight bird photos. While I didn't get any good shots of the harrier's underside, my focus was much better than yesterday's attempts. I cannot help but marvel at this bird. It's so amazing to watch!





Then came the big surprise: A Great Horned Owl! I've never seen an owl in the wild before, and to have one visit my own back yard - I was beside myself! It stayed for a good hour, and I was able to get a bunch of photos with the Rebel, as well as digiscope a few with the point-n-shoot.

Project 365: Jan 26, 2008

I would have never imagined my first owl sighting occurring in my own back yard! The excitement was almost too much! This Great Horned Owl sat in my yard for nearly an hour. I got about a hundred shots of him with the Rebel and 300mm lens, and a few with the digiscope and point-n-shoot as well. I didn't hook up the Rebel to the digiscope, as I was hoping to get some flight shots when the owl took off, but he flew away from me instead of toward me and I had no luck with that.

Still, I'm incredibly happy with the shots I was able to get, and hope to get more visits from owls in the future!

Project 365: Jan 25, 2008

A Northern Harrier, in my back yard!

Blackhawks vs Blue Jackets

Hockey!

Here are the rest of the photos I took at last night's hockey game. (Click the photo to see the set)