Interesting adventures:) The title reminded me of K-PAX. The bird has very nice blue plumage.
On Sat, Aug 9, 2014 at 8:57 AM, Daniel J. Matyola <[email protected]> wrote: > The bluebird of happiness flew up my, ah, nose. <G> > > For decades, I had kept a number of bird feeders in our back yard, as > many as eight at a time. For much of that time, I recorded my > visitors under a program run by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. I > really enjoyed watching the birds enjoying my feeders. > > In recent years, however, the deer and squirrels attracted by the bird > feeders have become a bigger and bigger problem. We also had > occasional visits by racoons and black bear, which were very > destructive, not to mention dangerous. > > Three years ago we got a new puppy, and we have been trying very hard > to train him to stay in our yard, so he could tun free, at least in > that acre or so. The deer and other critters attracted by the bird > feeders became a major nuisance, so very reluctantly I decided to give > them up. > > The lack of bird feeders the last couple of years has greatly reduced > the number of deer and squirrels in our yard, and made it a lot easier > for our Malamute to enjoy playing in the yard. There has been a > surprising side effect, however; there are a lot more birds nesting > in our yard than before. I suspect that the more aggressive birds > attracted by the bird feeders, like blue jays, cardinals, starlings, > grackles and crows, had been intimidating smaller birds and > discouraging them from nesting in our yard. Last year we had two bird > houses that were occupied with small birds. This year, we had five > occupied bird houses, plus a nest in a tree and one on one of the > floodlights on my house. Better yet, for the first time in decades, > we have bluebirds nesting in two of our bird houses. > > One of the bluebird houses is on the edge of the woods, and I see the > birds infrequently. The other is close to the house, however, and we > see them several times a day, often when we are at the pool or in the > hot tub, which is quite close to the house. > > I have, of course, been trying to capture some images of the > bluebirds, with little success. They are quite shy, and disappear as > soon as they see my camera. (How do they know what I'm up to?) Even > when I manage to sneak up on them, they are so quick in and out of the > house that there have been very few opportunities. > > This weekend, I decided to give it yet another try. I set the tripod > up on the deck, but they saw me and kept hidden. After an hour of no > sightings since I brought out the camera and tripod, I gave up. As I > was putting my gear away, I had an idea: They don't seem to mind us > when we are in the hot tub, so why don't I try hiding behind the hot > tub, resting the camera on the cover? I knelt behind the hot tub and > set up the camera. after a few minutes, the female flew out of the > house, and back in a few minutes later, but she was too quick. > Besides, I couldn't get in a position to focus properly through the > view finder or even the LCD. I pre-focused on the surface of the bird > house, and waited, with my finger on the shutter release and the > camera set on multiple images. > > After about 20 minutes, my back was aching, but suddenly the male put > in an appearance. I fired off several rapid-fire shots, and then > tried to follow him when he rested in a tree and then on the top of > the dog run. > > I wasn't able to get a good sharp image of the male, so I plan to try > again this weekend. This is the best I have been able to manage so > far: > > http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=17830976&size=md > Comments are appreciated. > > Dan Matyola > http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/danieljmatyola > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
