"Birds, fascinating creatures." ~ Anonymous
Since I purchased my first digital camera in December 1999, I have been photographing something almost daily but, when it comes to animals, birds have been my primary interest.
About three or four years ago I added a 70-300mm zoom lens to my Nikon D200 SLR. This addition significantly improved my ability to capture birds in their natural habitat and my interest in the photography of birds took a quantum leap.
In this blog I will present the best of my bird photography. I welcome comments and will, from time to time, solicit your help to identify an avian image. (Click on any image to zoom in to the photo.)
My first bird is without a doubt the rarest and most colorful bird I've photographed. It's a male Mandarin duck (Aix galericulata) with a maximum length of about 18". This specimen seemed no longer than about 12". (This duck is often confused with a Wood Duck which is also very colorful.) You will have a hard time counting the number colors on this bird but I'm sure it's around ten. This particular individual is banded on one of its legs. I visited the park over a six month period and found this guy hobnobbing with the Canada geese most of the time. He didn't take any guff from them either! He knew how to puff up his chest to intimidate the much larger birds. They seemed to give him plenty of room. The sad thing was that he didn't have a mate, at least none that I could see.
I believe the second specimen to be a female American Black Duck (Anas rubripes) with an adult length of 23" and a wingspan of 35". (Please correct me if I'm wrong.) One nice thing about most ducks that I've photographed is that they will often allow you to get very close to them, especially if they suspect you have food. This allows for extreme closeups. Many other birds like egrets, bitterns and herons rarely permit one to get within 50 feet of them.
I don't know what the next post will bring so stay tuned and we'll all be surprised.
No comments:
Post a Comment