Some Passerines

I took these pictures about a week and a half ago. I was planning on getting them up on the Monday, but I'm enrolled in a summer institute at University which is mainly in front of the computer and didn't have the energy to face sitting in front of the screen for any longer. Last weekend I spent creating a stop motion animation film for the same institute and had had enough of cameras and photos by the end of that. Anyways, Here they are. I took the first two on a walk with the dog at Clover Point.

From Photo of the day 2010

I'm not sure what this little guy is - my guess is a juvenile sparrow, what kind I don't know. He was pretty tame, but getting my camera set properly took too long for me to get any more than this one shot. I liked how he was sitting on the branch and that the background was free of noise. I cropped this, lightened it up a bit with highlights and sharpened in Picasa 3.

From Photo of the day 2010

This one, on the other hand, I know is a mature song sparrow. The small dark spot on his chest along with his grey and brown striped face gives that away. He was remarkably tame - or defensive - and stuck around for a lot of shots. Most of the backgrounds were too noisy for my taste so they didn't make it up here. This is full frame from the camera at 300 mm (which will let you just how close I was, maybe 5 feet away). I increased the highlights a bit and sharpened in Picasa 3.

As I was sorting these photos I came across a neat one I took nearly 2 years ago. I cropped it today to remove some distractions and change the bird's postition in the frame. Because of that, and the fact that I didn't have this blog when I took the shot I figured it was fair game to put up here. This is a cedar waxwing at the water garden at Minter Gardens outside of Agassiz, BC.

From Photo of the day 2010