Headshots, Etc.

Redhead drake (lifer)

Great Egret

Mallards (he’s crested)

Common Merganser hen (reminder: I need to get my hair cut)

Killdeer

Ring-Necked Duck drake

Ring-Necked Duck hens

Some of our ducky friends will be heading out soon, back up north. Safe travels, guys. It’s been fun spending time with you.

The Bigma!

House Finch, male

Northern Mockingbird

Less than a year ago, I got a new camera lens, a Nikkor 18-300mm that I love for its broad focal range, from wide angle to close-ups. I thought the 300mm would be such an improvement from my 200mm for birds and that I would never need another lens.

Wrong! I need a longer focal length for birds. So, while my 18-300mm will remain my main lens, I’ve now added the Sigma 150-500mm to my lineup~the Bigma! (Technically Sigma’s 50-500mm is the lens referred to as the “Bigma,” but this one is almost as long). Weighing in at a petite 4 pounds plus 1.5 pounds for my camera plus battery and straps, I can still handhold it because of its image stabilization feature…but after a couple of hours, it’s heavy.

The first two shots as well as these below were all taken with the Bigma at 500mm or close to it last week. Click photos to enlarge for detail.

Mallard drake

Mallard hen

Ring-Necked Duck drake

Rock Pigeon

Rosy-Faced Lovebird

Anna’s Hummingbird, male

I’m pleased with the sharpness and there is a big difference, to me, between 300mm and 500mm when it comes to shooting birds. Anything longer than 500mm, I don’t think I can handhold so I think this will be my birding lens for a long time.

A few cat shots with the Bigma:

Svengali

Stripey

Ivory

Edie

Winky

And I certainly don’t want to forget Ebony but his photo, below, was taken with the Rokinon 800mm Mirror Lens, also handheld. But that lens is much lighter because it’s a mirror lens.

And just because Marbles, Google, and Jessi didn’t want to be left out, here are some recent photos of them taken with my main lens.

The boys love to soak up the sun in front of an open door.

Jessi loves her bed and does not love the boys.

An Egret Study

On the same cloudy and rainy day that I got the first 2 photos in my last 2 posts (Flicker, Goose), I was able to hang out with this Great Egret at my favorite park, Granada. It’s the first time I’ve seen an egret at that particular park and, as I was leaving a little later, I saw this one and a buddy head back to the lake.

I never get tired of watching egrets (and herons) even though they are fairly commonplace and I especially like when one lets me close to it for awhile. Well, until they get skittish or annoyed and take off.

CHOMP! Okay, not really, no ducks were harmed or eaten and he/she wasn’t even trying to get the duck, just an optical illusion…but entertaining.

This egret is in full breeding plumage. More than 95 percent of the Great Egrets in North America were killed for their plumes in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Plume-hunting was banned, for the most part, around 1910, and Great Egret populations quickly began to recover.

The Great Egret is the symbol of the National Audubon Society, one of the oldest environmental organizations in North America. Audubon was founded to protect birds from being killed for their feathers.

The Letter F

Flicker (Gilded, female)

Finch (House, female)

Fun (with the Rokinon 800mm Mirror Lens)

Tony gave me this lens for Christmas. You have to shoot all manual and the aperture is fixed at f/8 and the focal length at 800mm so there are limitations but the above shot was handheld. Click to enlarge; I was pleased with the detail. Imagine if it were on a tripod. I’ll be doing more moon shots in the future.

Fisheye

Tony gave me this fisheye lens a few years ago, too. It’s an awesome lens (Nikkor 10.5mm f/2.8) with very crisp detail. I played with it on one of our recent rainy days.

Fog

Fog is an extreme rarity in Phoenix but Super Bowl Sunday morning had a lingering fog for our many out-of-state visitors. Fog shots abounded on Facebook, I just wish I had gotten some pretty ones like many I saw.

This post was brought to you by the letter F.

*This is my 591st post and I started blogging on 2/13/09 so I’m averaging about 100 posts per year and I still love it. Thank you for checking it out.

Duck Duck Goose

Are you the sort of person who looks up when geese fly over? I always do; they make me happy because they seem so happy. I see them a lot, at home, and around where I work. A couple weeks ago, I was walking into work and a flock flew overhead so I looked up. Then I looked around to see who else might have seen them…hard to miss because they were loudly honking away. Everyone else was looking at their phones or their feet. I’d rather see geese, wouldn’t you?