WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2020   |   SUBSCRIBE    ARCHIVES   

BACKYARD BIRDING
Memories about the birds that grace our yards and neighborhoods during spring and summer with their songs, nesting activities, and visits to our water features and feeding stations tend to surface at this time of the year. So where do our favorite backyard birds spend our winter months? Where do orioles, hummingbirds, robins, bluebirds, wrens, swallows, martins, and other birds migrate to for the winter? For any distribution or range map information about any North American species of birds, you can always count on All About Birds – provided online by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
BIRDING LIFESTYLES
As birders, our binoculars tend to be our most important equipment in the field and in our yard, but when shopping for binoculars and other optical equipment, we tend to be confronted with terms that mean little to most of us, and we wish for a definition of such terms as we read product descriptions. What are “Phase-Corrected Coatings” and how do they help binocular quality? And how about such terms as Extra-Low Dispersion Glass (ED Glass), and Internal Coatings. What is Chromatic Aberration?
BIRDING NEWS
During the upcoming long weekend, from Friday through Monday, share the fun and importance of the annual Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) February 14 thru 17. Anyone can join the action wherever you are – in your yard, at a favorite birding location nearby, across the state, or on the opposite side of the country. The bird counts tallied by participating birders provide an interesting insight into wintering populations of birds in the United States and Canada, and birders worldwide participate and add to the information and excitement of the weekend event.
Bald Eagles from Florida to Minnesota and Oklahoma to California have already begun nesting and you can monitor their nesting behavior now and watch the action online from egg laying to fledging via some well-positioned live-streaming cameras – day and night. Four live cams stand out. with one Bald Eagle nest featuring newly hatched downy nestlings, two others showing eagles incubating eggs at different stages of development, and one pair that is still nest building, so there is plenty of action to follow week to week, month to month, as the nesting season continues.
In the shadow of Levi Stadium, home to the San Francisco 49ers, a group of birders raised their cameras fitted with telephoto lenses to photograph a Golden-crowned Sparrow in a tangle of branches. This being Silicon Valley, these birders have day jobs at some of America’s biggest tech companies. For them, birding provides a chance to decompress, refocus, and stay curious. This particular birding walk too place at the Ulistac Natural Area, an oasis of nature in the city of Santa Clara.
EDITOR AFIELD
I started last week with two wide-ranging drives that took me from the Missouri River to the Mississippi River, not by the shortest route, but cross-country from Bismarck to Minneapolis, about 470 miles one way. Northern Cardinals have long been a tough species for me to get good photographs of, even at feeders, but Thursday I was rewarded with my best cardinal images at Lowry Nature Center, a favorite haunt west of Minneapolis. Other feeder birds there included a Red-bellied Woodpecker and a flock of American Tree Sparrows among Black-capped Chickadees, Blue Jays, and White-breasted Nuthatches.
GEAR
Available in 8x42 and 10x42 models, you will notice the advantages of Zeiss Terra ED Binoculars as soon as you pick them up. The classic affordable Zeiss Terra ED 8x42 Binoculars provide birders with large fields of view and steady images, and the large objective lens diameter is optimal for birding. Zeiss uses renowned Schott ED glass for bright, sharp images combined with premium multi-layer coatings on all glass surfaces for optical clarity and precision in any birding conditions – and the Zeiss T coating is a guarantee of brilliant, high-contrast images.
PRODUCTS
In addition to flowers and chocolates, this year add some special coffee to your Valentine gift – or try a new brand or blend of shade-grown coffee at home and at work that benefits wild birds. Choose from a variety of coffee blends and roasts, including a great decaffeinated medium roast coffee. Certified shade-grown coffee is grown on coffee farms that are integrated into the tropical forest, so this type of coffee growing attracts a lively community of birds, monkeys, butterflies, and other wildlife.
The colorful and unique Perky-Pet Cactus Top-Fill Glass Hummingbird Feeder is a favorite among birders and hummingbirds alike – especially in the Southwest, where hummingbirds and cacti share winters. The wide-mouth opening and top-fill design ensure that filling this new feeder is easy and mess-free. In addition to the cactus-shape, this feeder features lifelike hollyhock-inspired feeding ports that are brightly colored, soft, and flexible just like the real flowers. The flowers’ tapered stem design also acts as a natural bee guard to keep bugs out.
RARE BIRDS
The rare bird flash of the week came from northwest Montana, where a young Ivory Gull was observed on the shore of Flathead Lake – a First State Record! Another super-rare species for the Lower 48 was a Siberian Accentor, an Asian species photographed in southwest Washington. Bird feeders attracted a high percentage of the rare birds found last week, including a First State Record Black-chinned Hummingbird in Maryland, a beautiful adult male Scott’s Oriole that is thought to be among the first five records for Georgia, and a colorful male Painted Bunting visiting a feeder in Connecticut.
 

BIRD PHOTOGRAPHY

When you need a little Magic in your day, who ya gonna call? Merlin of course! And when you’re really lucky, Merlin arrives. But not Merlin the Magician, Merlin the dynamic species of falcon with a big attitude in a small package. One memorable winter day, my Merlin magic was unparalleled: Within 200 yards I encountered three Merlins! This, an hour after I said to Talia, a co-worker on a southern California nesting bird study, “You never know what might show up at any given moment.”

Paul may never be able to improve on this portrait of a dynamic male Merlin that perched in the open at close range with perfect afternoon lighting.

First, I found a female Merlin perched with a recently captured wintering Yellow-rumped Warbler in her talons, but although she was a beautifully colored falcon she was perched among many thin branches that did not provide a clear view of her. A little farther down the road, as I turned around at the same location where I encountered and photographed a Peregrine Falcon two weeks before, a small falcon flew in from the southwest, and darned if it didn’t land on a bare tree about 100 feet away. It was a male Merlin that almost resembled a miniature Peregrine as it settled onto its perch.

I decided to try to get closer to the male with the hope of finding a position where branches didn’t obstruct the mini-falcon. But suddenly another male Merlin flushed from the cover of eucalyptus leaves to perch on a bare branch right beside me with the clear sky behind it and beautiful late-winter sunlight illuminating the mini-falcon for my camera. As I photographed the magic raptor I noticed its very dark coloration, indicating it originated from the northern forests of western Canada or Alaska – a true Taiga Merlin.

As if seeing three Merlins within 200 yard wasn’t exciting enough, the third Merlin provided a memorable photo opportunity – what luck!

Wow, three Merlins in just a few minutes – and the grand little falcon before me was especially photographic, providing my best portraits of the species to this day. This isolated grove of trees along a watercourse in open ranch country was a definite falcon hangout, and I encountered several Merlins there during regular visits, along with a couple Peregrines. Plus, one of the reasons I was drawn back to the location time and time again was that there were a few pairs of nesting Burrowing Owls that I was monitoring scattered across a 20 acre area. How much fun can you have at one location?

The photographic moral of the story is that not every bird you encounter will provide an opportunity to photograph it. Some birds provide a chance for a documentary photo, but not necessarily a pleasing image. Some birds seem to taunt you by showing themselves, but keeping a few branches or leaf clusters between you and them. And when you least expect it, one pops into position as though you conjured it to perch there to utilize the prime sunlight, blue sky background, and close proximity to make a mental impact.

This Peregrine image was cropped to use the flow of the weathered branches to highlight the falcon’s setting.

The rest is up to your camera: The light meter does its job, the autofocus does its job, the shutter speed and aperture settings combine to provide the best image you can hope for. Clearly, these are the kinds of opportunities we must be ready for in advance of when they happen. Have your camera in hand, or within reach – not in a case or backpack in the back seat. Pre-set the aperture preference (Av) setting for the current light conditions, say an f8; or if you anticipate a background, perhaps an f6 to try to throw the background out of focus. Using the Av setting on your camera, the shutter speed will be set automatically, depending on the aperture setting you use and the available light conditions; but using an f6 or f8 should provide a fast shutter speed.

Of course, try to steady your camera lens against something, or tuck your elbows into your chest to form a solid base with your arms. And even though you may be breathing heavily with excitement, hold your breath as you take photos. Try to keep your wits about you as your heart beats wildly, your muscles tense up, and your mind races. But be sure to enjoy the moment too. Marvel at the feathered dynamo before you; appreciate the chance to be so close and for all the magic to come together as a wonderful surprise of nature and timing.

The same image was cropped again to produce a pleasing portrait of the young male Peregrine Falcon.

The opportunity to observe Merlins and get a sense of what they are all about was fun – they are intense little falcons that turn on like a light switch and transform from cute little birds into intense killas using dynamic acrobatic flights. Magic indeed, each Merlin charged me with a considerable shot of adrenaline – enough to make me thankful for such wonderful birding ops, yet wishing for more.

And wishes do come true: Not long after the above Merlin encounters, while checking back on the progress of the nesting Burrowing Owls I spied a beautiful young Peregrine Falcon perched on a bare branch adjacent to where I photographed the Taiga Merlin. I wasn’t as close to the little male Peregrine, so after taking my photos of this exceptional avian dynamo, I cropped a favorite image to use the flow of the weathered branches to highlight the Peregrine’s position from a distance; then I cropped the image again to create more of a portrait of the memorable encounter. Again, the falcon makes the resulting images very special, and it provided both a memorable field experience and some favorite photographs.

Best Wishes to you for bigger and better photo opportunities and ever-improving images during 2020!

Article and photos by Paul Konrad

Share your bird photographs and birding experiences at editorstbw2@gmail.com

Event Calendar

FEBRUARY 13-15
Eagle Expo

Morgan City, Louisiana

FEBRUARY 13-16
Sax Zim Bog Birding Festival

Meadowlands and Duluth, Minnesota

Winter Wings Festival

Klamath Falls, Oregon

FEBRUARY 14-15
Birds on the Niagara Festival

Niagara Falls, New York

FEBRUARY 14-17
Great Backyard Bird Count

Worldwide

FEBRUARY 15
Orlando Wetlands Festival

Orlando, Florida

FEBRUARY 20-23
Whooping Crane Festival

Port Aransas, Texas

FEBRUARY 26 - MARCH 1
San Diego Bird Festival

San Diego, California

MARCH 6-8
International Festival of Owls

Houston, Minnesota

Monte Vista Crane Festival

Monte Vista, Colorado

MARCH 7
Cape Ann Winter Birding Weekend & Boat Trip

Gloucester, Massachusetts

MARCH 11-15
North American Bluebird Society Meeting

Kearney, Nebraska

MARCH 14
Birding America Conference

Chicago, Illinois

 
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