A backyard bird parade

[Steve Foss]

Hey all:

Well, I've been lugging this heavy new equipment all over the woods for the better part of a week and decided to take an easy break this afternoon and shoot from the backyard blind. The light was not too hot, clouds coming in and out, and so many of the songbird clutches have grown up and fledged that there seemed like hundreds of birds about.

Immature purple finches in particular were abundant. At one time I counted 27 purple finches with only one mature male on the shelf feeder at once. Young white-throated sparrows and hummingbirds, of course, were all over the place, too.

So here are some of the images caught in a couple hours in the blind. Nothing amazing, just some of that really good fun that shooting birds from a blind 16 feet away can deliver, while I had some time to spare between business commitments.

All with the Canon 1Dmk2n, Canon 600 f4L IS, iso320, ss from 1/1000 to 1/4000, all at f4 to f5.6, center-weighted metering, some use of - exposure compensation to prevent blowout of whites, all from tripod

White-throated sparrow pauses amidst seed hunting

Hey, I can't get my cowlicks to lie down!

Dad steps in for his share

This was NOT supposed to be slippery

Incoming!!!!

Ever vigilant, the sentinel

Female sneaks past the old man

A note on the BIF hummer image. I'd seen that the hummers were coming in and hovering just off the feeder in two separate places to check for the mature male's presence (he of course bombed in on them if he was about) before feeding, so I selected the so-called "ring of fire" focus point array on the camera. The "1" series bodies allow activating the outer ring of focus points, which looks like a horizontal, elongated "0". Anything touching any of these focus points or flying within the ring when focus is enabled gets locked onto. It's a great array for bird-in-flight images. So I manually focused to approximately the right distance and locked the tripod so the camera pointed just where I wanted it. Not every image was in focus, but several times hummers entered the "ring of fire" and I quickly engaged focus with the shutter button and fired a burst.

While the vast majority of bird shooters in most places are hobbyists and don't have "1" series bodies, enabling all the focus points on the XT, XTi, 20D/30D or 5D and following the same routine will get you some BIF hummer winners. Often the hummers will hover for three or four seconds in just the same spot, and that's plenty of time. I've duplicated the excercise with my 30D and 100-400L IS and it works with that setup, too.

[Dbl]

Nice work Steve, I love #3, #5, #7. The last hummingbird shot is dead on. I'm so accustomed to my Mark IIN I rarely use the 20D. I'm contemplating another Mark IIN even after I had my 20D focus calibrated and a shutter button replaced. It is now shooting better than new. The auto focus capabilities alone make the one series more than worth their weight in gold. If you are interested in one Steve I may have a line on one. Just let me know.

Dan

[Steve Foss]

Thanks Dan. I have all the desire to own the Mk2n body but not enough of the jing. Just no way I can put the funds together all at once for it. Thanks for thinking of me, though. I appreciate that a lot.

[Jim Almquist]

All really nice shots Steve and some great info on the Hummers that I will have to try before it gets any colder and they are gone.