Every winter we look forward to the arrival of the seasonal visitors to our garden. The first to arrive this year were the Blue Tits and today I saw a couple of Great Tits scouting out the restaurant facilities. In another week or so they will be fighting for space at the various feeding stations around the garden but today, each bird was able to feed at leisure. They will get bolder as it gets colder but for the moment, the feeders the furthest away from the house are the most popular with the tits... but not with the photographer!
This bird is very pretty, interesting reading on wikipedia. It looks like the same size as a chickadee. How did you get the background so out of focus with an f8? Fantastic lighting and the background is very unobtrusive. I like it very much!
Sorry didn't suspect this to be yours at first. But it is lovely. And you got 100% of the bird. Gosh I wish we had some of these pretty birds. That is a good question that Kate asks but I suspect you may have done some post processing as I do this on mine sometimes when I have time.
First of the famine-d flocks...or at least you'd think so from their unstinting acrobatics to obtain the smallest morsel. They provide a non stop cabaret...and a floor show when food booty falls to the ground. Fav
@kt8ird@joansmor Hi Mentees and thankyou both for your comments. This feeder is hanging on a branch of an oak tree about 12 metres from the house and about 8 metres behind the oak are several fir trees and one of these is responsible for the blurry background: the lower branches of the fir trees are somewhat bare which accounts for the greeny brown colour. I was about 8 metres the other side of the feeder which was lit by the setting sun. I was hiding behind a hedge which also stopped the sun falling on the lower background: at 300mm the DoF is rather limited which accounts for the out of focus background... and the principal reason why I chose this point of view! The lens is the same as yours Joan, so you could reproduce this. This is about 1/6 of the whole image so what was left was rather soft so I did do some sharpening in PS and a levels adjustment to restore the contrast.
Maybe you don't have these in your garden Joan... but you do have Cardinals, and Nuthatches - love those. We will have Great Tits soon and, hopefully, the tiny and delicate Coal Finches... and normally 3 or 4 other visiting species. Watch this space...
I was tired and grumpy last night. Feeling better this morning. I couldn't follow your style for my bird pictures because the yard is crusted over with ice, I think we are deeper into winter weather than you. But I will continue to try to get more shots from my kitchen window. I haven't seen many birds at the feeder in the late afternoon. But I have all winter to watch them. I might try the fstop when I have more time to play. So busy with work and it is wearing me down. So trying to keep my photography simple on working days. What I see from my car.
Maybe you don't have these in your garden Joan... but you do have Cardinals, and Nuthatches - love those. We will have Great Tits soon and, hopefully, the tiny and delicate Coal Finches... and normally 3 or 4 other visiting species. Watch this space...