Female, Common Redpoll (Carduelis flammea)
Here’s a quick post of some more images from Saturday, after the Denali Panoramic from the previous post. These birds have quite a view, looking out over the Alaska Range from atop a bluff outside of Talkeetna. They are well fed and used to people. I shot most of these from about 4-5 feet away. There were so many, sometimes 20 at once, that it was difficult to get a clean composition with solo birds. I set up my tripod with my 100-400 mounted, again IS turned off. It was fairly bright, so I was getting a high shutter speed. I still wanted to use a flash to fill in the shadows, but without a flash I was getting a shutter speed around 1/1000th of a second at f7.1 – way above the 1/250 flash sync speed. So I turned on the high speed sync on my flash unit, and since I was so close to the subjects, I knew that the flash power reduction would still be sufficient. So I was able to keep a high shutter speed and get a little fill & catch light. I shot these in 1 shot focus mode, and in single fire mode, as I really wanted to focus (ha, get it? “Focus”… yeah, it’s a bad photography joke) carefully. I wasn’t trying to shoot the birds in flight, or in succession – instead working on just single shots with clean comps.
Female, Common Redpoll (Carduelis flammea)
Every time I am blessed with close encounters of wildlife, I feel blessed. Whether it is a brown bear named Peaches, a Dall sheep ewe and lamb, or a group of birds at a feeder – it is an acceptance of trust by a wild creature. As photographers, birders & wildlife watchers we have an obligation to respect them and not take their trust for granted. It is always a gift. Treat it as such.
Male, Pine Grosbeak (Pinicola enucleator)
Stay tuned.
Nice finches, Dave. Amazing to get a Pine Grosbeak that was so cooperative.
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Thanks Jim, much appreciated. They were all very cooperative, but damn those tiny birds are fast and unpredictable. But they were a lot of fun to photograph:)