Birds on a Sunday afternoon

It’s been a mild Sunday here in Maryland and I think it just may be the calm before the storm. I spent the day getting the feeders ready, buying more bird seed and adding another feeder or two to the dogwood tree so that I could shoot pictures out the kitchen window. I was down to one old feeder out there and I hadn’t filled it until just last week. But I always keep the back patio feeders filled so it didn’t take long for the birds to arrive to the new ones.

These were all shot through my kitchen window, which faces west, using my Nikon D7000 and the 70-300mm lens. I chose manual mode to get the light just right. Unfortunately, in manual mode, the 70-300 lens doesn’t autofocus very well, so I had to resort to manual focus. And if you know anything about birds, they move fast.

 

Not that I’m complaining, because I did manage to get several decent captures. But you shoulda seen the ones that got away . . .

Above: Carolina wren.

 

This female cardinal sat and posed for a good 10 seconds or more.

 

This little sucker, however, was jumping all over the place.

This is a tufted titmouse. Don’t you love the little blue feet?

And that dreamy bokeh in the background?

Bokeh is pronounced bow-kay or bow-keh and it refers to that lovely out-of-focus light and all the different shapes and colors you see in the background of photos taken with a digital camera. It is created by light and and the glass in your lens and distance and wind and focus. It's a Japanese term for the subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of a photographic image.

 

Even faster moving is the White-breasted nuthatch.

They like to walk along the branches upside down.

 

The house finches, however, are content to sit and relax and have their photos taken.

They don’t mind, like the cardinals do, if they see me moving from the window.

 

That’s the old feeder on the right. I bought a new double-suet feeder today, on the left.

It was half price at the feed store.

 

When I was younger, I never would have believed that sitting by a window and photographing birds would have given me this much pleasure. I would have laughed long and hard had I been told this about myself. But then I got older and life slowed down a little more and now this is something quiet and simple that I can do on a weekend afternoon. And if I am lucky enough, I may even glean an image that is good enough to add to my etsy site for sale.

 

Black-capped chickadee.

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For dinner, I’m making {this} and enjoying it with a nice salad. And for dessert, I’m heating up one of the pain au chocolate delicacies that I made for yesterday’s breakfast. Made up the recipe myself and you can get it {here}, on my old Picture A Day blog that I haven’t updated in years. Hey – one blog is enough.

And I’ll be watching a movie that came in the mail yesterday: This is Where I Leave You. I hope it makes me laugh. I could use a good laugh. Hell, we all could. Right?

Enjoy your Sunday. And to those in the path of the impending storm systems . . . be safe.

 

Your friend,