Birds of the Bosque

This is Los Poblanos open space. It's an open field about two miles from where we live and birds can often be found here. Earlier in the afternoon we had driven past the fields and I'd seen a few cranes and lots of geese. The light was perfect, I decided that as soon as we got home I'd load up my camera etc., and head back there. Upon arriving at the dirt parking lot, I unloaded the tripod and camera and headed back out to the fields. In trying to place the camera on the tripod, I realized that a plate on the gimbal was loose and because of that, the camera would not stay level. UGH, back to the car. The plate required an allen head wrench, which I hadn't brought with me, so I left the tripod in the car and headed back out again . Getting closer to the birds, I checked the camera and lens settings finding (low and behold) another issue. The teleconverter I use on occasion was on the camera and had reduced the amount of light to the camera sensor. With this, the picture...

  When you see a bird you haven't seen before there is definitely a level of excitement; especially when the bird sits still for you. In the picture on the bottom, an eastern bluebird poses perfectly with the morning light bouncing off of it's breast, unfortunately I can't make the pictures any bigger here. I was able to get a half dozen pictures of this beautiful bird before it took flight in the photo at the top. When you are lucky enough to see a bird take flight, quite often you can't get the picture; but not because you weren't trying. Birds are lightning fast but to get the picture you have to be faster; the majority of the time you'll get one 'shot' at capturing the moment. The camera has to be set to a fast shutter speed as in the picture above (1/4000th of a second) or the picture will have blur. You will no doubt be disappointed as your eyes and your brain capture the perfect picture but the resulting photo isn't always a 'keeper....