outdoor photography

Loggerhead Shrike Yesterday I visited Central Winds Park hoping for migrants.  It was kind of a slow morning.  The cold front up north should have brought migrants down, but weather patterns seem to have held them from coming down to us.  So I had 9 warbler species, none of them worth writing  home about.  The most unusual bird was a Tennessee Warbler by the lake shore.  I had my first Eastern Phoebe of the Fall; before too long I suspect we'll be inundated with them. I heard a Greater Yellowlegs calling by the small pond, American Crow So I tried to see if I could get some decent photos.  I came home with one of my best photos of an American Crow, and a Loggerhead Shrike posed for photos as well. I also decided to play around with my Canon Poweshot G7 X. The more I use this camera, the more I like it. I'm preparing a review of the camera that I'm hoping to post soon.  Here are a few photos I took in the late morning. Cabbage Palm wi...

American Crow For some reason, I have had a hard time getting a good photograph of an American Crow.  Part of the reason why is that it's notoriously difficult to distinguish them from Fish Crows if they're not calling. In fact, it's pretty much impossible.  So I have to see the bird call to know which species I'm photographing.  Well this one cooperated.  I wish it had found a perch instead of walking on a mown lawn, but I'll take it. Sometime ago I actually found out that there's one good field mark for telling the two species apart, though the field mark almost completely useless.  Fish Crows generally raise their throat feathers while calling, while American Crows do not.  Of course, if you're there to watch this happen, you're also likely hearing the bird call, and you can identify it by call instead of by this field mark. So the field mark is pretty much useless unless you're trying to identify a photo of a calling crow. Fish Crow