Feathered Friday - Birds Warming Up in the Morning Sun
Here are a few of my sightings for the week for this #featheredfriday by @melinda010100
I went out looking for the monk parakeets again but found a grumpy looking common grackle instead.
It tried to ignore me while it was warming up in the morning light.
Finally it had to cast a glance in my direction, oomph a human keeps disturbing my morning sunbathing.
Womp looks like I'll have to fly to another branch this human just won't go away.
This is usually where I see the non-native monk parakeets but it seems they weren't out today. They like to land in the branches on this trail and pick them to stack their nests higher on the electricity hub steel beams.
A robin posed nicely for me in the morning light. They are always good posers and I use them for camera settings tests since they will just sit there posing for a long time.
These blue jays on the other hand are not good posers. I rarely get a clear shot of them and they tend to fly away right as I get a good focus on them.
I saw a puffed up catbird trying to warm up in the sun.
It turned around and looked at me to make sure I wasn't there to try and catch it by the tail feathers.
These poor birds have no peaceful moments sunbathing this morning.
Here's a little American goldfinch trying to warm up. I'm not sure if it is a male that is still molting into his full colors or if its a juvenile male.
It might also be a female in breeding plumage. She finally noticed me below and took off.
The last guy I saw warming up was this cardinal.
Cardinals are fairly common here but they are another one that is difficult to get a nice clear shot of. They must have taken pointers from the blue jays on how to fly away right when you focus on them.
That's all for now, thanks for looking :-)
Very beautiful birds in the sunlight
The normal grackle looked pretty amazing in that light.
Yay! 🤗
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All the pretty boys play hard to catch 🤣 Nice captures. Great lighting. Always interesting to see what other people are seeing. We also have all these birds in Vermont right now.
The little jerks will sit there just long enough to get the camera focused then fly a split second later lol.
A wonderful selection of sunbathing birds. The blue jay is generally a beauty.
I wish they bluejays would stay still just a fraction of a second longer, they take flight almost every time I try and click the shot.
I like how you've described the difficulty in getting shots of blue jays (never have tried those) and cardinals (mission impossible for me). I thought it was just me, but am reassured that it's not.
I don't think I've ever seen a grackle or a catbird. Well done photos, especially focusing against the sky like that. The cardinal and the grackle are my favourites here.
I suppose the feeders are the best place to get easy shots of bluejay's and cardinals, though I like to try and attempt getting them out in the wild. I think in all my years of bird photography I only have a couple clear shots of a bluejay, the rest are just a blur or an empty branch where it was sitting a second before.
The catbirds are hilarious with their cat noises, they also make a ton of random noises like mockingbirds.
My father always had many feeders, but I didn't tend to photograph birds that way. It's always been out in the wild. Bluejays seem to be very mischievous in their nature. Nice disappearing act, LOL.
I'll have to look for videos of catbirds online. I have to hear them now. I don't think they live anywhere I've been in Canada, since I've never heard of them before. They look so cute.
They can be found in southern Canada, you probably have heard their strange cat meow noise off in the thickets. Took me a while to figure out who was making that noise.
I took a look after commenting and they are here and go south for the winter. I'm in the city, so I don't get to explore nature the way I'd prefer. They do sound like a cat! Almost a crying sound, quite distinctive. Thanks for the link!