Every spring for many years now, we've had chickadees build their nest in our light pole outside the back door. And every spring I just love watching Mommy and Daddy scurry back and forth to feed the little guys inside that pole. For the past two weeks, I've sat outside each morning for an hour'ish with my coffee and camera, hoping for that perfect shot. I've certainly gotten some great shots, no doubt. My prize winning goal was to get one in the perfect light peeking thru the trees behind me, shining just right on a sparkly clean chickadee sitting on a leafy branch in front of me with a green caterpillar hanging from his little beak just so... I got this close before the little guys apparently fledged, so I'll have to perfect it next year. Biggest complaint with this shot is the high ISO - should have set up tripod and slowed my speed down. That was my next experiment, but as I said, they've apparently fledged. (Darnit!!! I was hoping to get some shots of that, too!)
I have to say, nature photography is not for the faint of heart! I've seen these guys bring the ugly, crusty brown colored caterpillar things; slimy capterpillars so slimy that the slime slung up the bird's head ... but the absolute worst were the flesh-colored, nearly transparent spiders with their hour-glass torsos hanging out of the birds' mouths. Ugh! Still gives me THE SHIVERS!!!
The little people have enjoyed watching the chickadees with me. Val calls them Kittachees. So cute!!!
ISO800 on a Nikon D850 is like ISO200 was on cameras from only a few years ago - I regularly take both my Nikons and my Fuji X series to ISO12800 with perfectly usable results.
