Show your Bird Portraits

Difficult area of expertise for me, BIF.
BOB are much easier (Bird on Branch).

The attached is a Eagle/hawk something or other, shot in Tanzania Serengeti June 2013

1Dx 200-400f/4, Shot @ 377mm f/5.6 & 1/3200th ISO400
 

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Hi Don and thanks. Perhaps, but as I looked at all the various sample pictures there remained some features that just didn't seem right. Here is a female Redstart that I shot right here at home as well and well ...... On the other hand I know there can be significant variations. I don't have the experience to know if this is the case here.

There is I suppose a chance that I've got this shot misidentified too.

Jack
 

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Jack Douglas said:
Hi Don and thanks. Perhaps, but as I looked at all the various sample pictures there remained some features that just didn't seem right. Here is a female Redstart that I shot right here at home as well and well ...... On the other hand I know there can be significant variations. I don't have the experience to know if this is the case here.

There is I suppose a chance that I've got this shot misidentified too.

Jack

I was just guessing from info in the book "Birds of Canada" put out by Lone Pine, and I did a web search and some of the pictures seemed to match..... I really don't know and am taking a guess.

Love your pictures.... tiny birds will drive you crazy trying to get pictures and then trying to ID them...
 
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Well your guess may be right. It tends to bother me to not assign a name and then it also bothers me to assign one that I worry is wrong. I know, who cares. Unfortunately that's not the way I was raised. ;)

Anyway here is another shot that is slightly different, barely showing any yellow.
 

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Don Haines said:
Love your pictures.... tiny birds will drive you crazy trying to get pictures and then trying to ID them...

Have the same issue with Fish when I do Underwater Imaging, there's a gazillion of the damn things, I must have a dozen Fish ID books, mostly I've got down to 2 variations, "Big Fish" "Small Fish".

Might work for Birds, say 4 descriptions

BIF (Obviously Bird in Flight, or Bird being difficult)
BOB (Bird on Branch, my personal favourite)
Big Bird (Not to be confused with the Sesame Street Character, but similar)
Small Bird (Not to be confused with the Objects that are generally shot by "Bornshooter")
 
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Wonderful shots of the Bald Eagles! Amazing! That reminds me I have to get out into the bone-freezing cold soon here and see if there are any Baldies at the local watering holes. There were over 30 at Cherry Creek last year, and I managed to get some decent shots...but I've always wanted to get shots more like those posted here over the last couple weeks.

In the mean time, I found a couple sets of photos I had not yet processed or published, taken in September. Backlit gulls at sunset:

flight-of-the-gull.jpg

flight-of-the-gull-3.jpg

flight-of-the-gull-2.jpg


(See larger versions, and more, at my blog.)

All relatively high ISO, largely under-exposed to preserve highlights against the sun (which was at the opposite side I usually prefer it to be...behind the birds), so they were quite noisy at first. Managed to process out the noise without adversely affecting bird detail.

Canon 7D + 600/4 II
 
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Jack Douglas said:
Help please before I go crazy, anyone. Alberta, Canada late summer near Edmonton. I thought warbler but I've hunted front to back through The Warbler Guide and run into contradictions of one form or another - the yellowish patch, the brownish head, distinctive eye ring .....

Jack

That is a Yellow-Rumped Warbler. Immature or Adult Female, probably. Take a look here:

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/yellow-rumped_warbler/id

Hope this helps!
 
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eml58 said:
Difficult area of expertise for me, BIF.
BOB are much easier (Bird on Branch).

The attached is a Eagle/hawk something or other, shot in Tanzania Serengeti June 2013

1Dx 200-400f/4, Shot @ 377mm f/5.6 & 1/3200th ISO400
Defenitely a birder hidden in there! And this gives a point to our M.. friend, who claimed the 200-400 was a birder´s lens. It certainly is :)
 
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mackguyver said:
Northstar said:
Krob78 said:
Great Crested Fly Catcher with Damsel Fly...
1/1600s
f/3.5
ISO 640
200mm

Lovely framing!
Nice backlighting, too. And 200mm? How did you get so close? I'm impressed!
Thank you Mack! Funny too was, as soon as he ate the damselfly, he flew out of the tree and right at me, missing the left side of my head by inches! They are a bit flighty but this one was a shade tolerant of me... I was about 15' away, so there is obviously some cropping for the composition... Did seem odd that he swooped right down at me! Wish I would have been shooting when he did that!
 
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Maximilian said:
Krob78 said:
Great Crested Fly Catcher with Damsel Fly...
1/1600s
f/3.5
ISO 640
200mm

oh.. I love that "wooden frame".

maybe a little bit more crop to get the distracting leaves out of sight...
Thank you! yes, the leaves were a bit irritating but the tighter the frame, the less I liked the composition in general... I could remove them and leave the crop where it is... hmm... perhaps...

And welcome to the forum!
 
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Thanks ftico! You nailed it. There seems to be an awful lot of variation in this particular warbler. Now I have another name to brag about! ;)

I'm sure there was no yellow rump on my bird, so what else is new! Here's another shot of this cute little gal.

Jack
 

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Jack Douglas said:
Help please before I go crazy, anyone. Alberta, Canada late summer near Edmonton. I thought warbler but I've hunted front to back through The Warbler Guide and run into contradictions of one form or another - the yellowish patch, the brownish head, distinctive eye ring .....

Jack

It looks a lot like a Northern Mockingbird. The wing pattern and white circle around the eye are quite distinctive.

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/northern_mockingbird/id

I have them all over my yard. But the small yellow patch at the base of the wing is a little different from what I've seen at my home. For about 6 months, this one was sitting on the bed rail of my truck every morning when I came out to head to work.

 
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