outdoor photography

Bay-breasted Warbler This was a wonderful morning.  I joined the Orange Audubon Society's birdwalk at Mead Gardens, and the weather was just spectacular.  It wasn't hot, and it was sunny, and there were a fair number of birds to see. My biggest hope this morning was to photograph a Bay-breasted Warbler.  We did find and photograph one, which made my day, but we also found 9 other warbler species: Black-and-white Warbler, Tennessee Warbler, Common Yellowthroat, American Redstart, Northern Parula, Black-throated Blue Warbler, Palm Warbler, Pine Warbler, and Yellow-throated Warbler. Pine Warbler I've been giving myself an education on how to distinguish Pine Warblers from fall Bay-breasted Warblers.  You can see some similarities in the above photos, but immature Pine Warblers are far less yellow, making them more similar.  I don't see color perfectly, so I need to find other ways to distinguish them.  These photos illustrate three helpful clu...

Yellow-bellied Flycatcher This morning I returned to Mead Gardens hoping to photograph the Yellow-bellied Flycatcher that's been seen there the past few days.  Thankfully, it looks like it stuck around for me, and while it didn't pose as nicely for me as  I would like, but I was able to walk away with some presentable photos. Yellow-bellied Flycatcher Warblers were scarce this morning, but vireos and thrushes made up for the lack of warblers.  I found White-eyed and Red-eyed Vireos and both Swainson's and Gray-cheeked Thrushes there.  The photos I was able to get of the thrushes seem to be a pretty good illustration of how well the Canon 7D handles noise at high ISOs.  Both of the photos below were taken at ISO 2500, but in the more even lighting in the Swainson's Thrush photo the noise is much less noticeable than in the heavily backlit Gray-cheeked Thrush photo. Swainson's Thrush Gray-cheeked Thrush