Thursday, May 31, 2012

Painted Bunting

 1/400 | f/8 | ISO 800
1/800 | f/8 | ISO 640 | Fill Flash

Success at last! After several unsuccessful attempts in the last couple of weeks to photograph Indigo and Painted buntings at the Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge, I finally got some images I am happy with from this morning's shoot of a very cooperative male painted. I have to give credit to another photographer that my mom and I met on Tuesday at the refuge who pointed us to this spot. It is just fantastic and filled with both species of bunting as well as other birds. Although the Indigo's are still alluding me, I hold out a lot of hope of getting some shots soon from this spot. Photographed under overcast light from a storm that passed through early this morning. The soft light really helped to bring out the vibrant colors of this bird. Both images were taken with a tripod mounted Canon 7D and 100-400mm lens.

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Thursday, May 24, 2012

Great Egret

1/500 | f/8 | ISO 160

Nothing special here, just a quick shot of a Great Egret fishing at the lake close to my home in evening light. Taken this past Tuesday, I was trying to photograph some sparrows and was having terrible luck, this guy was kind enough to make sure I didn't go home empty handed!

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Friday, May 11, 2012

Scissor-Tail Flycatcher in Habitat

1/1600s | f/8 | ISO 200 | Fill 

Here is a image from Wednesday taken at the reservoir close to my home. I was trying to approach 2 Great Egrets that were fishing in the shallows of the lake by crouching low and slowly moving through the reeds and grass when this scissor-tail landed close by. I was able to get a couple of shots before it went off in pursuit of a insect. I really liked how this one turned out with the sense of habitat and loose comp.

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Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Prothonotary Warbler

 1/1000 |  f/8  | ISO 640

1/500 | f/8 | ISO 640

On Monday, my mom and I went to the Fort Worth Nature Center again to check and see if the Prothonotary Warbler and Indigo Buntings had arrived yet and to our delight they had! We heard both species calling from the parking lot at the boardwalk and it wasn't long before we saw both as we looked around the marsh. The warbler was cooperative posing for me on the railing of the boardwalk about 5 feet away from me and I got one decent image of the indigo bunting as well. We were short on time before the refuge closed, so we intend to go back sometime within the week when we have more time and I am hoping to get some better images of both birds. Both of these images were taken with the camera resting on the railing of the boardwalk under a cloudy sky.

click images to view larger size.