Show your Bird Portraits

rfdesigner said:
Whilst in the garden today I noticed a fledgling just sitting in the grass, chirping away. They do this when they jump from the nest, apparently it's safer to be sat in the undergrowth than in the nest as preditors may well have worked out where the nest is. However with 3 rather clumsy children galumphing up and down the garden it's life chances didn't look good, so I intervened. (Birds have poor sense of smell, so a slight proximity doesn't put parents off unlike say deer, but it's not wise to move a bird very far otherwise parents might not find it again)

Having been on a handling course for birds of prey I treated this exaclty the same, crawled in as low as I could, got it to hop onto my wrist then raised that arm so it was slightly above me when standing, it seemed quite happy, carrying on chirping.

I got my wife to grab the camera, told her what to do, how to focus etc and she started clicking away and slowly approaching. This is the last shot before it jumped onto her head, eventually it jumped into the trees next to us.

And species wise it's a Robin.

Taken with a 28mmf1.8 on a 6D... who needs telephoto! ;D

IMG_1224.jpg
very nice story!
 
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sedwards said:
i just bought a new house and made a setup so i can shoot right from my bedroom window. i need to find a diferent kind of seed cause all i have for now are grackles and sparrows and they empty the feeder every day. they offer some good poses but not the prettiest bird around lol

Despite the subject, nice picture. My place also has grackles cleaning out the feeders :)
 
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sedwards,
Congrats on new house!
Don't know if you can entice some birds while excluding certain birds with a specific seed or seed mix. We use a common song bird seed mix which include millet and oil seeds as the main components. Most birds visiting will pick out the oil seeds and fling away the millets which the smaller birds eat. Some of the seeds then fall to the ground and doves get them. At times certain species will just perch on the feeder excluding others. In the past few years, the seed feeders (oil seeds) have attracted flying squirrels to visit at night.
( http://www.canonrumors.com/forum/index.php?topic=12203.msg538031#msg538031 )
And yes, I have to refill the two feeders almost daily; it could reduces my budget for lenses.
I also have two hummingbird feeders, too. They provide the most entertainment when several hummies come visit.
Hope you find a good seed mix to attract desirable birds. And post pictures of them.
-r
 
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