# Backyard Buddies



## kundalini (Jun 19, 2012)

I moved into my current residence in December and put up a bird feeder around February. It seems I have a great place to feed the birds, but have lousy lighting conditions. From the comfort of my deck (about 40' away), they are backlight in the winter and in nearly constant shade once the leaves from the mature trees. I've tried lighting it up without any satisfactory results. Besides, my shooting time has mostly been when while I was out back having a smoke break. I keep the D300 with the 300mm f/4 attached by the back door. Sadly, without taking any notice until I upload the card, my shutterspeeds were way too slow. I've now set that rig to Auto-ISO maxed at 3200 and minimum shutterspeed at 1/250s. That's all the excuses I'm using right now, but I do have a few more left in the bag. Hope you enjoy.

This fellow greeted me on moving day. Made me feel good about the place.
















































​I've got more, but I'll only bore you a little bit at the time.  Thanks for looking.


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## manaheim (Jun 19, 2012)

Chipmunk!  Get a gun!

Love the nuthatch one.


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## kundalini (Jun 20, 2012)

Cheers Chris.


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## greybeard (Jun 20, 2012)

Beautiful Bokeh on all of them


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## rick93 (Jun 21, 2012)

I agree, amazing Bokeh!


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## kundalini (Jun 21, 2012)

Thanks Greybeard and Rick. Yeah, the 300mm f/4 does render a rather nice bokeh IMO.

Here's a few more to whet the appetite. 

*Shades of Grey
*


















​Again, thanks for looking.








Oh yeah, one more thing...... I'm saving some of my favorites for later. You might want to check back from time to time.


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## manaheim (Jun 21, 2012)

Oh love the birdbath one...

Man, stop it... you're making me want to go out and shoot our birds.


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## PixelRabbit (Jun 21, 2012)

Great captures and awesome Buddies! The Mockingbird? bathing is wonderful! Nuthatch is great and your hawk is a stunning creature


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## 2WheelPhoto (Jun 21, 2012)

That 300 lens is amazing


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## morganza (Jun 21, 2012)

Very clear images, bringing out the good colors and makes the photos in overall look amazing. Good job!!


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## SCraig (Jun 21, 2012)

Great series.  I especially love the eyes of the hawk.  I think a crop of just his head would be outstanding.

The third one (Bluebird?), is it a tad over-sharpened?  It looks a little odd around his eyes.

I do the same thing from time to time.  I get out on my deck with my 150-500 and wait for the squirrels to attack the feeder.  I had a feeder on the front porch as well and could shoot out the living room windows but one of the attack squirrels we have here got angry when the feeder was empty one day and started gnawing on the woodwork!


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## kundalini (Jun 22, 2012)

You guys do know that by commenting on my photos only encourages me to post a few more, don't cha? Is that something you really want to do?

Saw this Opossum lumbering along the fence line and ran inside to grab the camera. By the time I got back outside it had already climbed the tree. It wasn't bothered too much by my presence since the neighbor's German Shepard was barkiing its head off, not doubt from smelling or seeing the critter.







​There is an entrance to the Capitol Area Greenway in my neighbohood and I always see wabbits when I'm biking on it, but have never seen them in my yard....... That is until.....


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## Cpi2011 (Jun 23, 2012)

Great stuff your series is very much attractive but second third and last images are special for me !!


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## kundalini (Jun 23, 2012)

I've been blessed with having four types of woodpeckers as visitors to my backyard. There are a couple of pairs of both Downeys and Red-bellied that come around daily and frequently. To my delight a Red-headed and a Northern Flicker pair have been spotted.
*Pecker Heads*
I've already posted a male and female Downey above, but here's another shot of a male.






Red-bellied male












Red-bellied female






Red-headed (the only woodpecker with a fully red head) 
For a while, I thought this would be the only shot I could get






But eventually he made it over to the feeder to dine on some suet





















And finally the only decent (and that was said with slight disdain) of the Northern Flicker. They seem to be very skittish and fly off at the slightest creak of the backdoor opening.





​Cheers.


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## BlackSheep (Jun 25, 2012)

Wow, where do you live - in a national park?

Fantastic shots all of them, I really like the possum, the bird bath and the red-headed woodpecker shots!


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## ScubaDude (Jun 25, 2012)

Excellent set. You're lucky to have such a great variety of birds in your yard.


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## kundalini (Jun 27, 2012)

Thanks BlackSheep and ScubaDude. I do feel very fortunate to have so many birds and such a variety.

Here's a few from the past few days.......


















One of Gabby since she has become quite the squirrel chaser. She has been only watching the birds though.




Thanks for looking.


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## kundalini (Jun 28, 2012)

The _*SHOCK *_The _*HORROR *_The _*SKEWED RATIO *_of views to replies











































​Could it be this thread has gone a little flat?











​
Where's the love? :hugs:


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## kundalini (Jun 29, 2012)

*UPDATE on the PECKER HEADS:

*It seems all the woodpeckers here exhibit very peculiar behaviors before actually making it to the feeders. Caution is their watchword.

It appears the Red-headed Woodpecker is the least frequent visitor to my backyard. Fortunately, I do see it a couple of times each week, but it is sporadic at best. 

The Northern Flickers are definitely a pair and I do believe there is a juvenile in the mix. I've seen three at the same time (in separate trees) and one was feeding another after it had a spent some time at the suet feeder. Since they have been the hardest to photograph, they have been the most sought after. I have finally gotten a few shots that are actually identifiable. The only thing is that I never thought about looking on the ground, my eyes had always been focused up in the trees. Go figure.


In profile







The red Vee on the back of its head








Headshot







I want to show this image for the following reasons:
1) The white patch of feathers on the backside are indicative of the woodpeckers here
2) They take off fast or is it that I am too slow
3) I like the abstractness








​


BTW, I'm just gonna entertain myself in this thread. At my age, I have plenty of experience with that. :lmao:


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