The Magic Hedge - 5.20.11 - post 2

So there have been tons and tons of nests visible through the branches this spring, because it's been so cold for so long.  Apparently the birds can read a calendar and set up housekeeping because it's May and they should.  Trees on the other hand say, "It's freaking cold.  My leaves are doing just find inside, thanks."

The leaves are starting to come out now, but still a lot of the nests are pretty easily seen.  Unlike last year when the mother robin built her nest about three feet off the ground (and consequently lost it and her four eggs) most of them are like fifteen to twenty feet up.  Not something I can go investigating.  But a few are in the eight to ten feet up range.  Now, I'm not even five feet tall, but I have a tripod.

I've been putting on the kit lens, pulling the focus back as far as I can, setting the camera on auto and then putting it on the tripod.  I set the timer for ten seconds, the continuous shooting mode for 5 (one shot every second for five seconds), collapse the tripod legs together and hold it up over my head like a boom mic and *hope*.  A lot.

This shot was a little easier than most to get.  I stood back from the tree and didn't have to worry about angling down.  I wanted the mother crow in the nest.

I waited her out and she finally left (okay, a few loud people behind me scared her off, I think - I watched her for like half an hour and she didn't mind, but then these teenage girls came through...)  Anyway, I did the camera-on-a-stick thing and got this.

Not wonderfully in focus and I wish those leaves in the bottom left corner weren't there, but you can see that mama is waiting for something to happen. :)

I found this nest a little bit later.  This was as good a shot as I could manage, but I haven't seen a bird in or very near it in the past two weeks I've been watching it.  It may be abandoned, or maybe I just have lousy timing for catching something in it.  I *think* it's a robin's nest. (If someone else out there knows better, please let me know!)  The mud around it makes me think of this shot...

Another camera-on-a-stick moment.  I never saw the mother in the nest, but there are roughly a billion robins in the Hedge, so I'm pretty sure she's around somewhere.  I'll be keeping an eye on this nest. :)





So about half-way across the park, a really heavy fog started rolling in off the lake.

Now, when you're actively trying to shoot things far away from you, it's not fun when the fog makes everything, well, foggy.  But if you switch your focus to getting mood shots, some fun stuff can happen.

 This looks better bigger.  In the midground there's a flock of seagulls.  This is the volleyball court on Montrose Beach, which is just behind the Hedge.  You can't even see the lake.

It looks like I took this shot in October.  Like I was saying, the leaves aren't making much of an appearance yet.  For that matter the wildflowers aren't making an appearance at all.








 

Okay, up next, a new bird-watching spot in Chicago.  It's half-way between the Magic Hedge and the North Pond.  If I ever got seriously energized, I could start at the South Pond, hit the Lily Pond, go up to the North Pond, hit this new spot and then go up to the Hedge.  And freakishly, each of those spots has at least one bird I haven't seen at any other place.  And we're talking about a roughly four-mile stretch of the lake front.  Geographically speaking, that's not a huge area to cover!

The Magic Hedge - 1.11.11, Post 2

So like I said at the end of the last post, there were a lot of animals out and about for this kind of weather.  Of course, it's easier to see them when there's no brush or leaves in the way.

Bunny Bundles Up

 The first critter I saw was a bunny.  So was the second and third.  It was Bunny, ten steps, Bunny, ten steps, Bunny for a while.  All of them hidden in this thicket of the remains of the tall grasses and flowers of the spring and summer.

Literal Crow's Feet

 I know crows freak a lot of people out, but I find them kind of cool.  I love the texture of the feathers at his shoulder.  Also there's something inherently interesting to me about a completely monochromatic animal, down to his eyes and feet.

 And then he decided to head for the next tree and I got this cool shot of his wing.  I also used this shot to be sure it was an American Crow and not a Raven - a Crow's tail is that seashell/scallop shape and a Raven's tail is triangular. 

I Seed What You Did There

There were some seriously pudgy squirrels out there today. A woman I was talking to said she was the one putting out the seeds.  She wants to try to attract cardinals.  Now, to be fair, I spent an hour and a half today hoping to get that iconic picture of a male cardinal in a snowy evergreen, but I'm not sure it's a good idea to start tossing down seed in a wild sanctuary.  You could easily end up introducing a plant that doesn't go there when you do that.  Not to mention you influence the way the wild animals behave and then what will they do when you don't come back with more?

M-Y Geese

 Then there were the geese.  Again, there was a big crowd of them because there was someone out feeding them bread.  But when the bread-man left there was just this big flock of geese on the lawn.  There had to have been 75 - 100 of them easily.  And at some point they all decided to leave.  But not at once, like something scared them.  About fifteen of them lined up, facing the lake then all at once they took off.  Then fifteen or twenty more spread out in a line like the first set had and after a minute that group took off.  They kept going in batches like that.  Which, as a photographer was great.  I was able to start predicting their behavior and I knew where to aim the camera. :)

The Second Heat Takes Off

 So here was the second set.  I love that my camera caught them all with virtually no blur on any of them.  It does, however, make it look like a slightly weird photoshop job where the birds were just pasted in haphazardly.

The 3rd Heat

The shapes of the wings in this one are so very cool.  There's the "M" guy in the extreme foreground, the "V" guy above him.  There's the "U" guy on the left and the "Y" on the right.  Too bad they couldn't spell anything. :)

Last Group Gets Off the Ground

 The guy in the middle of this shot looks like someone just lobbed a bird into my picture.  Don't you wonder how anything that big, with that much mass gets off the ground without jet engines?  I love the white "V"s on their tails and that you can see the "V" on all 5 geese in the shot.

I Know I Buried Food Here Somewhere

There will be many, many squirrel pictures, later.  But for now, one guy who must be looking for *something* he buried.  He kept shoving his face in the snow and then coming up and looking... annoyed. :)











Okay, that's the first half of the shots I took today.  More later.