![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/yellow-rumped-warbler-9059-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"yellow-rumped-warbler-9059-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\nYesterday was “one of those days” in the field.<\/p>\n
After a long drive in the dark I spent much of the morning trying to photograph\u00a0warblers and\u00a0kinglets but they were buried in the mostly dead bushes and they definitely didn’t want to come out and play. Most of the few shots I did get had busy unattractive settings or the birds were in shade. And to top it all off my best opportunity of the morning, a Red-tailed Hawk takeoff from an interesting rock perch, was ruined by malfunctioning photo gear!<\/p>\n
I hope cleaning my electrical contacts\u00a0solves the problem.<\/p>\n
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1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n This male Yellow-rumped Warbler (Audubon’s) was one of the few birds to give me some relatively clear shots. The dead twigs and leaves at left are some indication of how unattractive most of the trees and bushes they preferred were. There were\u00a0usually living green trees very close by but the dead ones must have provided more of their small insect food so\u00a0that’s where I found them.<\/p>\n So I didn’t get any photos of the\u00a0warblers that pleased me aesthetically but I did enjoy this series of two shots for another reason. As you can likely tell\u00a0by his posture the bird\u00a0was about to launch himself forward so I fired a\u00a0short, quick burst in hopes of\u00a0catching him in flight.<\/p>\n In a way I did and in another way I didn’t, depending on how you define “flight”.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n Instead he\u00a0jumped straight forward some distance without\u00a0using his wings at all. I’m quite\u00a0sure he didn’t flap his wings between the first shot and this one because I remember noticing that he didn’t through my viewfinder. It appears that they’re just about to open for the first time in this photo and he’s already traveled quite a distance through the air. I’ve cropped the photo to include the perch he launched from so that distance is obvious.<\/p>\n His pose makes me smile because his leg and foot position, folded wings and overall posture\u00a0make it look like he’s still perched but the perch is invisible.<\/p>\n When you think about\u00a0it his\u00a0performance is an indicator of how incredibly quick little birds can be and how difficult it\u00a0usually is to photograph them during takeoff.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/1000, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n I have a love\/hate relationship with this photo of a Ruby-crowned Kinglet taken a few minutes later. Because of their incredibly frenetic and shy lifestyle and their very small size I find kinglets to be one of my most difficult subjects. But this one flew down to a spring at the base of the tree and perched on a curved branch almost directly above it for long enough that I was able to fire off a few shots.<\/p>\n I think this\u00a0image had some nice potential. I like the curve of the perch, the dappled light on the\u00a0scene with the bird well-lit\u00a0(including a catch light in the eye), the good\u00a0detail on the tiny kinglet,\u00a0the deeply shaded background with hints of greenery and the foot-forward pose with the head down.<\/p>\n But that damned out-of-focus branch to the right largely ruins the effect for me.<\/p>\n Whoever said photographing tiny birds well\u00a0was easy? It sure as hell wasn’t me.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Yesterday was “one of those days” in the field.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/yellow-rumped-warbler-9060-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"yellow-rumped-warbler-9060-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/ruby-crowned-kinglet-9141-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"ruby-crowned-kinglet-9141-ron-dudley\\"")
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