Saturday was a great day for photography. It was as bright a day as anyone could ask for. Unfortunately, though, my favorite sighting of the the last three days took place Friday in my back yard, and it was anything but sunny.
Despite the miserable light, I was thrilled to see this Varied Thrush in the backyard and managed to get a few shots of it before it flew off. I’ve never seen one in the yard before, and only rarely sighted them in my walks through Pt. Defiance park, obviously when I’m not carrying a camera. I managed to get a few shots of one in California last year, but none of the shots were as good of these because it refused to leave the deepest shade.
When I first saw it, I thought it was a robin because it was similar in size and shape and because I’m used to seeing robins in the plum tree.
Once I looked carefully, I realize it was a Varied Thrush, though. Unfortunately, my eyes were much better at picking up the bright orange color than the camera was, at least until I adjusted the colors in Aperture. I’m still amazed that Aperture is able to turn awful pictures into acceptable, if not good, pictures.
When you shoot RAW files, you’re able to pull out colors, and white details, that you can never recover from jpeg shots. It’s certainly worth the extra disk space that RAW files consume.
I really think this shot, though it has more noise than I like when blown up full size, is even better than what my eyes saw.
Coincidentally, the second bird I saw at Belfair this weekend, right after I’d just seen a robin, was a Varied Thrush, but it managed to fly off before I realized that it wasn’t a robin and could get my camera focused.
I’m keeping a closer than usual lookout at the feeder in hopes that it will return again when the light is better.
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