Monday, March 22, 2010

Big Visitor !

I still feed the bird feeders and try to notice what comes into the garden. There is a seasonal variation to what can be found in our quite little garden. Last week we had a real treat.

I have a rubbish little digital camera and I have to work with its limitations. So, when a majestic buzzard came into the garden, I was keen to get a photo if it without spooking it. (For the folks in the US, a Buzzard Buteo buteo in the UK is a very large hawk and not a vulture.)The bird was seen three separate times last week sitting on a rock at the edge of our frog pond. We have a number of them living and breeding near our house. I quite often hear them screaming. I'll look up and way above me will be a couple of them circling. In the late summer there will be entire families of buzzards soaring above the fields. This is the first time I have ever seen one get this close to the house. Naturally the photo is blurry and you can barely make out that there is something in the centre of this picture. I tried blowing the photo up and using digital photo editing, sharpen the edges. This is as good as the photo got. Certainly the mole hills that are peppering the front lawn are plainly visible. *sigh*

I have a spotting scope that is almost permanently set up in the front room with the lens focused on the bird table. One can see the songbirds and occasional great spotted woodpecker in lovely sharp focus. Knowing that digiscopes are just spotting scopes manufactured so that a digital camera can be attached I tried sticking the lens of my battered camera up to the eyepiece of the spotting scope and took a few photos. It's tricky to get it angled right among other things.

Here are a few of my first efforts. I think if I stick with it, I could get better at getting in-focus photos of the birds that come for a visit and a snack. Coal tit - looks like a North American Chickadee but has that big white spot on the back of his head. Greenfinch Great tit with a male chaffinch off to the right.Female chaffinch

9 comments:

Jay said...

Those pictures using the spotting scope are fantastic! Very damn cool. ;-)

Riaz Ali said...

These photographs are absolutely beautiful. Myself and my partner Pami really enjoyed them and our favourite was the Greenfinch - such exotic colouring. Well written blog to! :-)

Susie said...

Nice work getting those pics through the scope. (notice how I'm resisting the urge to call you a birdy peeping Tom?? tee hee)

Sarah said...

These are so cool! I like the buzzard lurking over the frog pond. Maybe you can convince him to grab a few moles? If I had a camera scope, all I'd capture are a few sparrows, maybe a skunk, and my neighbor in his undershirt.

Anonymous said...

Brilliant photos Peggy. Joyce

Anonymous said...

I'm interested in those mole hills. I'll have to take a photo of our lawn in the fall after the possums (or whatever they are) destroy it looking for summer-fattened grubs. It looks similarly devastated.
Cousin Susan

Joy Des Jardins said...

These photos are wonderful Peggy...these little birds are so cute. That buzzard look ominous ever from far away.

LyleD4D said...

Just so you know, the third photo is a great tit, not a blue tit.

Blue tit is smaller, has a little crest to the head and has blue flashes down the sides. Hence the name.

Sorry to be a pedant - they're nice photos though...

Peggy said...

Thanks Lyle - I thought it might be . . . In my defense, the stripe down its middle was very thin.