some turtles, some more flying birds, and some signs of spring

[Celebration]

all on the Tennessee River, of course

My favorites, the turtles



I figured out I liked flying birds simply because of the eye/hand coordination thing. I used to like shooting skeet. I took tons of flying bird pics, and now they just totally seem like they descended from, uh dinosaurs. I have never known gulls like I now know gulls. But, even though this is a new camera, I can tell a better one would have turned out better pictures.





I like the way the wings are covering up the face.



I had some non action shots of gulls too, but, eh, too far away to really see them great. They are more skittish than turtles. Half of the turtles did move when the bass boat accidentally hit their stick.



Not a gull--most likely a heron--too far away for anything but a silhouette



Aha!! A couple of signs of spring survived last weekend's weather--

Pollen on unknown tree



Forsythia!



By the way, the yacht club sign is a little humorous. Some peopls up there have houseboats, and they get a separate dock. The dock is the yacht club.

[JeffR]

1. Ah!

These are invigorating.

(And you need to spend some time shooting Great Lakes ring-billed gulls. Far from being skittish, they assume they're in charge. They even seem to enjoy hamming it up for the camera.)

[semillama]

2. Nice shots

The bird in silhouette is actually another gull, not a heron, by the way.

[Celebration]

3. you're right, definitely not a heron

I did get a shot of a heron, but it was about 100 yards away, so not great. Anyway, I am now sort of hooked on flying birds rather than still ones.

[semillama]

4. Flying birds are definitely a challenge

but if you can pull off a good crisp shot, it makes it all the better!

Here's a couple of my better birds in flight:

[Celebration]

5. love those

I think with my camera I needed to be closer than I was to get crisper shots. It's just a basic point and shoot with a good zoom. The hummingbird I could probably get, if I knew where to find a hummingbird. I'm having fun trying to get birds in flight, though. Maybe I'll upgrade at some point.

[Blue_In_AK]

6. These are nice bird shots.

I've been trying to get some photos of the redpolls around here, but they're REALLY skittish. We've just replaced the birdseed in the feeder with a new blend, which the birds are going nuts over, but every time I step out to try and photograph them, they fly up into the trees and wait for me to go back inside. Since we put the new seeds in yesterday, we've had a zillion redpolls, some chickadees, a couple of magpies, and a squirrel.

[Fumesucker]

7. I use my Trooper as a blind for birds..

I have an old beater Isuzu I schlep around in and use like a tractor sometimes for pulling firewood logs and such around the property, it doubles as a blind. The birds will pretty much ignore you in a car once it's been there for a few minutes. I open up the back doors and fold down the rear seats and set up my camera/tripod/seat there. I have one of those stadium seats that people take to ball games and it sits right on the floor. Having my antique tripod nice and short makes it more stable with a longish lens..

My brother designed and built his own home and has a huge window of 3/4 inch thick tempered glass he hauled off a commercial jobsite in his bedroom with his monster bird feeder right outside the window. He's into the birds but is not a photographer, if his house was closer I'd go there more often and shoot because his place looks like a scene from that Hitchcock movie sometimes but it takes me a full tank of gas to get there and back and that's become prohibitively expensive for me.

My grandkids great uncle does the bird feeders here on our property (I live in a camper set up on my daughter's and son in law's five acres) and he doesn't have them set up where I can shoot from either house with the equipment I have right now.

[Blue_In_AK]

8. Our birds are right outside the front door.

I've tried shooting through the window, but the glass distorts the image too much. The carport is too far away to get a good shot, and it's too cold to stand around outside and blend into the scenery for any length of time. I guess I'll have to wait until spring to set up on any birds.

I wonder what birds will be around here by May and if they'll like the crushed up sunflower seeds as much as these redpolls do. It's just crazy the way they flock around. We used to have a different seed mix in the feeder, but we didn't see any birds at all. But yesterday as soon as we put out the ground up sunflower seeds, they came out of nowhere almost instantly. They must have amazing senses. I'm glad we found some food that they like because they're so much fun to watch, even if I can't photograph them.

[Fumesucker]

9. Sunflower seeds definitely will attract the birds..

That's probably the best single thing you can put out. Bluejays will scatter everything else out of your feeder to get to the Sunflower seeds.

There's quite a few that like raw peanuts too, the Tufted Titmice here go gaga over the peanuts, it's hard to keep them in stock they go so fast.

In a climate like yours small birds especially can lose 1/3 of their body weight keeping warm overnight, putting food out for them really reduces the stress on their bodies.