Month: August 2016

Nothing much happening since our California trip. More often than not, the highlight of our day is our 3 1/2 trek down to the beach and back, a significant step up from walking two miles on a round track at the YMCA. I do think both Leslie and I are in better shape than we were at the beginning of summer, but it’s hard to put that into pictures.

Luckily, we continue to walk weekly at Theler Wetlands where we spot enough birds to make the four mile walk a delightful experience.

One Sunday we sighted this Red-Crossbill, a bird I’ve only sighted three times in all the years I’ve been birding.

The next Sunday we sighted a Black-Headed Grosbeak,

a bird I’ve seen occasionally at Theler, but still rare enough I consider it a treat.

The real highlight of the day, though, was while watching large flocks of American Goldfinches,

we noticed a Cooper’s Hawk (I think) intently watching, too.

Once Leslie sighted the hawk, I immediately shifted my focus to the hawk as I tried to capture a shot of it in flight.

This might have been a young hawk because it seemed awfully inept at chasing the Goldfinches.

Birds or no birds, walking the four miles at Theler is a real treat as I get in my exercise without every feeling like I am exercising. I even get in a walking meditation at the same time. Can’t beat that. If I lived closer I probably wouldn’t need a YMCA membership.

If you travel you’re likely to add a bird to your “lifetime list,” even if you don’t have a lifetime list. Though birding wasn’t particularly good on our California trip, I did get shots of two birds I’ve never seen.

While touring the Colusa NWR, the ranger told us there were large flocks of Tri-colored Blackbirds on the back side of the refuge. Sure enough, there were large flocks of them flying overhead carrying insects for newly hatched young. Unfortunately, not one shot of them flying overhead turned out, and I was left with this rather sad shot.

If I hadn’t been told ahead of time I would probably have thought these were Red-Winged Blackbirds.

I have seen Pied Grebe babies before, but this is definitely my favorite shot from my Spring Lake walk.

Birders sometimes go to extremes to get shots of a lifetime bird. This Lesser Goldfinch

landed on the feeder while were visiting friends in Santa Rosa. Truthfully, I thought it was an American Goldfinch, Washington’s State Bird, until told otherwise.

Whenever I’m out birding and birds are scarce, I look for other sources of beauty and am seldom disappointed. Surely it can’t be pure coincidence that when birds tend to fade into the woods in mid-summer that flowers take center stage.

I have no idea what these three flowers are, but not knowing their name didn’t deter me from admiring them.

This yellow flower was growing along the edge of the road in the Colusa National Wildlife Refuge.

This pink beauty was growing next to Spring Lake in Santa Rosa,

as was this purple flower that I originally thought was an aster.

If it is, I’ve never noticed the blue rods emanating from the center of the flower.

Luckily, as Shakespeare noted, a flower without a name is just as beautiful as a flower with a name.

I really didn’t get many outstanding shots at the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge on this visit, so I thought I would share some similar shots that I took with my camera setup (a Canon EOS 7D Mark II with a 100-400mm lens and a 1.4 III) to compare with those Leslie took with the Canon SX60HS.

This frog shot is probably the closest thing we have to shooting the same subject at the same distance

and, honestly, the only major difference I could see is in the colors reproduced. I tried to match the colors in her shot and couldn’t do it.

I’m not positive, but I think this shot of White Pelicans feeding after herding fish was taken as the same time as the one I shared yesterday.

I didn’t manage to get a shot of the deer and two fawns because they were on Leslie’s side of the car, but I got a shot of two Jackrabbits that she missed because they were on my side of the car.

If her camera was truly superior, it should have been capable of shooting through the car door.

It’s really not fair to compare my Dragonfly shot to hers because mine was a heck of a lot closer,

but, still, the colors seem quite different.

Leslie didn’t get a shot of this flycatcher (Say’s Phoebe???),

but since this was one of my favorite bird shots of the day, I had to sneak it in here.

Leslie actually got a shot of this female Ring-Necked Pheasant

but it was taken facing directly into the sun, which no camera can compensate for, and was deleted on my first run through of the takes as unusable.

I’ll end with a similar shot to the one Leslie took at the end of the first day, this small flock of Wild Turkeys running down the road.

My shot reveals more detail than hers, but I could not recreate the bright, orange colors that made her shot pop.

Not surprisingly, having spent a considerable amount of money on my main equipment, I’m sure it takes far better pictures than the SX60HS. I’ll let you decide for yourself if the price difference is justified.