We have plenty of wildlife in our backyard. We get a variety of birds visiting. Recently, while sitting out on the deck, we had a new visitor. I am not an expert on birds but I do have a very big book with lots of pictures of them. There are so many that it is easy to pick the wrong one but I think this one was a Steller’s Jay. It stayed around for a couple of minutes before flying off. If you are knowledgeable about birds and I am wrong, please feel free to let me know what it actually is.
The answer to that question is clearly “not much” but it isn’t zero. We do get things flying overhead here on a regular basis. We are on the approach to SeaTac for some arrivals and we do sometimes get Boeing Field traffic too. It’s a rarity when there is something interesting and I am ready, though, so that doesn’t provide a lot. However, I did recently have a T-38 from Boeing’s chase fleet come over the house. It was a bit high but it was enough to get me out in the driveway!
We have also had helicopters fly over on occasion. An Army Chinook came past one time while and Navy Seahawk was another transient. In each case, I only heard them shortly before they arrived so grabbed the camera while at my desk and shot through the window. That is not a good plan but it was all I had available at the time. These can count as my lockdown at home aviation projects!
Being quarantined at home and working from home means you have limited things to shoot. It also means you get to see things that happen during the day which you normally miss by breaking at work. I put the trash out on Monday evenings but would not normally see it being collected during the day on Tuesday. Now I see that. Also, I get to enjoy the engineering of modern trash collection and the skill of the operator sweeping in to pick up each can in turn. These little thins amuse the engineer in me although I guess I am probably a long way from the rest of the populous in this. For a small percentage of you, here is some video I put together of our trash guy. Let’s hope we get to go out again soon and I will look for more exciting subjects!
I’ve been catching up on some video editing while stuck indoors. During the Christmas break, mum and I took a walk along the Sammamish River. There were lots of geese floating downstream and they were busy washing themselves. This involved a lot of flapping and inverting themselves in the river. Of course, when I got close, they stopped doing it while their buddies further downstream seemed to be busy washing. I did finally get some footage of it so here is a short video of geese! Bet that’s just what you wanted to see today!
We have been having some issues with our hummingbirds. One of them has decided the feeder is his and no other birds can use it. He sits around and feeds to his heart’s content. Even when he is in a local tree, anyone coming close gets chased off quickly. We have named him “Cartman”. One of the recommendations in such a situation is to have a second feeder so we have added one to the fence nearby. One of the benefits I have found with this is that it puts the birds at a different angle between me and the light and it brings out the colors more vibrantly. Here you can see Cartman – he is still trying to dominate the place.
While walking along the Sammammish River Trail, a couple of Mallard Ducks flew by me at low level. I pulled the camera up at short notice to get a shot. No time to change the settings so this is what I got on the spur of the moment. As it happens, the shutter speed did a nice job of blurring out the background and making them look super speedy. I kind of like it!
With mum visiting from the UK, we took a walk along the Sammamish River Trail. The river was very high as a result of the heavy rains we had experienced in the preceding days. The river has otters living in it and I was hoping we might see one. As it turned out, we saw four. A group of four otters was moving up river diving for food as they went. I wished I had brought a longer lens with me but you go with what you have. Of course, they chose to stay on the other side of the river for much of the time but it was fun to watch them anyway. They got a lot of attention from the other people on the trail too.
Having had some success with the GoPro as discussed in a previous post, I decided to play with the slow motion capabilities of the camera to get some different shots. The nice thing with a GoPro is that you can put it almost anywhere to get different angles. While playing with this, some hummers came in to feed and, since I had my phone with me, I shot some video with that too. They really didn’t seem too bothered by my presence. Here is some more video results.
Sometimes you just forget what you have tucked in the garage. I have been trying to get shots of the hummingbirds in our back yard and more recently shot a little video with the DSLR. Then it occurred to me that they might be wary of people but not of inanimate objects. Why not stick a camera on a post right next to the feeder.
While it hasn’t had much use recently, I have a GoPro (or two). I have an adaptor that would sit on top of a lighting stand which is plenty tall enough to get up to the height of the feeder. Moreover, I can control it all remotely using a phone/tablet including a live video feed. I sat indoors with the iPad on watching for movement on screen while doing other things. As soon as one appeared, a press of the button and they were being recorded. The initial attempts failed until I remembered to switch off the beeps and the LEDs that flash during recording. After that it was easy. The results were rather pleasing.
A sunny Sunday afternoon seems like a good time to go for a stroll.It was not supposed to be a wildlife photo trip.I did have the little M6 with me in my pocket, though, and, since the 55-200 is pretty small, I took that along too.I was rather glad I did too as, while walking along the river, we saw a family that were peering in to the river.There were ripples on the surface so we stopped to see what they had seen,Soon we could see the outline of a pair of otters swimming about.We watched for a short while and were about to move on when they swam down towards us and climbed out on to the bank.
One of them had caught a fish – a pretty big one in comparison to the otter itself. It started crunching noisily in to the meal while the other otter seemingly stood guard. They were on the bank for ages so we watched them for a while and then left them to enjoy their lunch. A short distance further along we came across a couple watching another otter so I guess this stretch of the Sammammish is pretty popular with otters!
We have plenty of wildlife in our backyard. We get a variety of birds visiting. Recently, while sitting out on the deck, we had a new visitor. I am not an expert on birds but I do have a very big book with lots of pictures of them. There are so many that it is easy to pick the wrong one but I think this one was a Steller’s Jay. It stayed around for a couple of minutes before flying off. If you are knowledgeable about birds and I am wrong, please feel free to let me know what it actually is.
