Simple Set Ups

The past three mornings I went out into the yard and created some simple set ups. On the first day I duct taped a branch to the side of a small platform feeder  about ten feet out from one of our bedrooms. Within minutes of setting it up the birds were using it.  I got some nice images from it. The second morning I grabbed an old knothole feeder I had lying around and I used some wood screws to attach it to the same post. The birds loved it and so did I. This morning I added a fall colored background behind the feeder. For some reason the birds weren't as cooperative. I had a long, long wait before the birds started using the feeder. Eventually they came in and  I was able to create some images. I hope that you are all enjoying your week. God's love and blessings to all, chris

Upcycled Glass Bottle Bird Feeder

I have a lot of problems with squirrels tearing apart my plastic bird feeders. It's not that costly to replace them as I use a lot of plastic bottles as bird feeders. It's just that it's a pain to make a new feeder. A thought came to me the other day when I was bringing glass bottles to the recycling center. Maybe I should just make a feeder out of a glass bottle. So I grabbed an Avocado oil bottle out and set it aside. Next I searched online on how to drill holes in glass bottles. It's actually very simple. First I ordered a set of some cheap diamond tipped hole saw bits. You can only use them three or four times each before they wear out. Next I grabbed my battery powered portable drill. Don't use a corded drill unless you want to get electrocuted and die. Following that I put some duct tape over the three places I wanted to drill some holes. Two small ones in the bottles neck and one larger one down at the bottom of the bottle for the feeder spout.The duct tape helps to keep the bit from sliding all over when you start to drill. I say helps because getting the hole started was the hardest step. I filled a pan of water with just enough water to immerse the bottle laying flat on its side in the water. This provided a layer of water to cool and lubricate the hole saw bit when I drilled the holes. It only took a couple of minutes to drill each hole. After drilling I cut up a wire clothes hanger up to hang the bird feeder from.The final step to building the feeder was to take some medium sand paper and smooth out the sharp edges of the holes. That afternoon I filled the new feeder up with black sunflower seed and hung it up where my old plastic feeder used to be. Within a few minutes the birds were already using it. I was very pleased with how it came out. This morning I set up a perch next to the feeder and got a really nice image of a Chestnut-backed Chickadee waiting to come to the feeder. I photographed it from my photoblind with a Canon EOS 7D MKII camera with a Tamron 150-600mm lens at 300mm. The camera settings used were AV mode, ISO 800, F 8.0 at 1/40th of a sec. fill flash was provided by a Canon 550EX Speedlight set to -1 1/3stops. These little guys are a lot of fun to photograph. Mendocino County, Northern California.#teamcanonusa, #withmytamron God's blessings upon your weekend, chris