I actually used a manual setting on my camera!
I put it on Shutter priority, set it to the fastest shutter speed and the fastest ISO possible and hung out near the bird feeder.
The results?
WOW!!
The graininess comes from the high ISO, right? Didn’t I read this somewhere? Who cares, it’s cool!
I filled the bird feeder this morning. It is now half empty and some animal (I’m looking at you, Mr squirrel) tried to chew through the bottom.
I hate you, squirrels. I do hate you so.
I may have developed a new lunch time ritual for the days I telecommute. More on that in a second, but first there is gore to share.
I went downstairs this morning at a little before 9:00 to put a load of laundry in the washing machine. There was another garter snake on the cellar floor. I walked up to him, he didn’t flinch. He’s dead, thinks me. I put the wash on, went upstairs, closed the cellar door so the cat couldn’t get at the slithery bastard, and started working. When it was time to put the wash into the dryer I went downstairs with a bucket and something to scoop up the corpse.
It wasn’t there.
DAMN IT! It was still alive!
An hour later I went back downstairs and he was back, just a short distance from where he was when I first saw him. I wasn’t taking any chances this time. I went upstairs and got a couple of things. One was the camera… obviously.
The other item I brought downstairs was a big honkin’ snow shovel with a nice sharp edge on it. I brought it down on the snake with a vengeance. His back was nice and crushed. I waited a few moments. He didn’t move. I scooped him onto the shovel and what do you know, he started moving. Damn thing still ain’t dead! I dropped him and gave him another slam with the shovel. I paused again and then brought it down one more time, just south of his head. He didn’t move again. I scooped him out and threw him in the woods. I hope something gross eats what’s left of him. Something like a slug, or a worm, or whatever. Stupid home invading snake.
So now that that drama was over, I could happily go back to work. When lunch time rolled around I had an idea. Every time I got up today, I went to the bedroom window to check on the bird feeder, and every time there were squirrels and chipmunks all over the thing. I yell, they run, I leave, they come back.
I decided that for lunch, I would cook some hot dogs on the grill, grab a camp chair and my camera, and sit outside on the grass. I could watch the birds and keep away the rodents all at the same time. Success!
I was lucky enough to catch a couple of birds just as they jumped off the feeder. I think a good clear shot of a bird in flight is the new goal for the summer.
I got some pics of birds just hanging out and having a snack.
Mostly what I got though was a lot of near misses.
Should anyone know what the name of any of these species is, please feel free to share. I haven’t a clue.
I created a new set on Flickr to hold all of the pictures I take of various wild animals who come and visit our back yard. I haven’t decided whether or not to include the snake I saw in the cellar today.
Two different birds! One is a Cardinal! Where is my good camera!
It’s time for a bird feeder update.
Don’t give me that look. You know you are dying to know how they are doing.
Much to my eternal surprise, the little bird house balancing on the empty flower box outside of the dining room window is still there! I’m guessing the reason it hasn’t fallen over yet is that no animals have found it yet. That’s just a guess, but it’s almost certainly an accurate one. This is how it looked at about 7:40 this morning, just before I left for work.
The news regarding the back yard bird feeder is a little more interesting. The good news is, twice this morning I saw birds visiting it. First a little bird flew up to it, landed, heard a noise (probably a fat guy in the house knocking stuff over trying to get to a camera of some sort), and took off. A few minutes later I looked out and saw a larger bird flying away. Success! The birds have discovered their free meal!
The bad news is that the squirrels have discovered the free meal too. Yesterday my beloved wife Jennifer saw a squirrel hanging upside down from the hook the bird feeder is hanging on, just munching away. Jen yelled at the little rodent bitch and scared it away, but I doubt it stayed away for very long.
I just hope that putting a bird feeder in view of our bedroom window doesn’t drive the HipstaKitty to murderous, psychotic episodes of bird watching frustration.
I posted pics of a bunch of birds we saw in Virginia. Most of them seem to be vultures. This one, however… is this a bald eagle?
If only I’d had my Nikon 55-200 mm F/4 5.6G ED-IF AF-S DX VR Zoom lens on instead of my Nikkor AF-S DX 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6 ED VR. (he said as if he knew what he was talking about) I would have been able to get closer to this bird and maybe had an easier time figuring out what it was.
We were at the site of the battle of Yorktown today, in Yorktown, VA. We saw this huge sucker of a bird circling over much of the area. I took a ton of crappy pictures. Can anyone tell us what type of bird these are?
This post references this older post.
Did you read the old post? It’s a short one, but very cool.
Today I saw the hawk again. I was outside shoveling and I heard a ruckus coming from high above me. The hawk was being chased out of the trees a street or two away from us by three very noisy crows. Mr hawk was just casually flying away. I wonder if he had a baby crow, or an egg or something as he was laughing in the face of the crows he had just violated. He flew over my head into the woods behind my house. Once or twice he bobbed and weaved as the crows got close enough to touch him, but otherwise he was just casual.
Then I saw something even better. Hawk number two! Hawk number two came out of the trees from the direction that hawk number one was headed and just leisurely flew past the others. I was expecting number two to kick some ass on those three crows. I mean, three crows vs two hawks pretty much equals two hawks eating crows for lunch, but no. Number two just flew away. He/she was pretty ambivalent about the whole thing.
Eventually I lost them all in the trees. A few minutes later the three crows came back out, heading home. I guess hawk number one showed mercy on them.
I love where we live. Our house is in a city. Not a big one, but a city nonetheless. Our home, however, is right in the middle of wild kingdom. We have hawks, we have deer, we have all sorts of birds I’ve never seen while living in the suburbs. I love it. I really love where we live.
Inside the Red Head's Head 