{"id":162996,"date":"2024-08-11T06:18:30","date_gmt":"2024-08-11T12:18:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=162996"},"modified":"2024-08-11T08:05:05","modified_gmt":"2024-08-11T14:05:05","slug":"yard-birds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2024\/08\/11\/yard-birds\/","title":{"rendered":"Yard Birds"},"content":{"rendered":"

8 photos of four species, all taken within the last week or so.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I was attempting to photograph hummingbirds at my zinnias when I spotted this faraway Osprey with a fish. It was easily 250 yards away and with the naked eye I couldn’t make a positive ID. Hell, I couldn’t even see the fish so I took a few shots to see if I could ID the bird later. It isn’t every day that I see an Osprey in my neighborhood so I’m including the shot just to document the sighting. The pretty large fish in profile is a bonus.<\/p>\n

Since it wasn’t in my yard I suppose calling it a yard bird is a bit of a stretch, but I was in my yard when I photographed it so that’s close enough for me.<\/p>\n

My blog, my definition of “yard bird”.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Lesser Goldfinches have discovered my Amaranth and they love those tiny seeds.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This one was searching for small insects in my zinnia patch. Considerate of it to pose next to one of my more attractive zinnias since many of the flowers are now past their prime. I’ve gotta get out there and do some more deadheading.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It spent most of its time foraging for tiny insects on the green foliage but there were also bugs on the flowers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I’m finally getting good numbers of Black-chinned Hummingbirds in my garden but the morning light there is very difficult for photography. They especially like my zinnias where the light is usually patchy and filtered at best.<\/p>\n

I have a nearby nectar feeder that attracts both sexes of hummer but for some reason, only the females feed at my zinnias. The males feed at the feeder and leave, never visiting my zinnias that I know of.<\/p>\n

And like most hummers, the females have chips on their shoulders. These two had a confrontation that I was able to document with…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

about a half dozen photos but I could never see the eye of the foreground bird and the bird in the background was always soft. After this shot they zipped out of frame up top.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

But it wasn’t the only confrontation they had. They seem to prefer to lie in wait for each other on my tomato cages.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I planted three varieties of sunflowers in my garden against my back fence and the seed packets said all three were only supposed to grow to a maximum of 6′ tall. But most of them are now over 10′ tall and this one is the tallest of the bunch at about 11′. And it’s still growing vertically with the first terminal flowers only now beginning to appear.<\/p>\n

That’s where this male American Goldfinch chose to briefly perch – atop my tallest sunflower. I got this one shot with a head angle I like and light in his eye. Light was contrasty but I still like the photo.<\/p>\n

This year I’ve spent more time photographing yard birds than I ever have in the past. I’m enjoying it and I’m just now realizing what I’ve been missing.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This year I’ve spent more time photographing yard birds than I have in past years. I’m enjoying it and I’m just now realizing what I’ve been missing. (8 photos)<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162997,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[334],"tags":[5887,1757,2174,4697,240,7579,7548],"class_list":["post-162996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","tag-amaranth","tag-american-goldfinch-2","tag-black-chinned-hummingbird","tag-lesser-goldfinch","tag-osprey","tag-yard-birds","tag-zinnias"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/american-goldfinch-2483-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-GoY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162996"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162996\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":163038,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162996\/revisions\/163038"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}