Fine Fall Day

Such a beautiful day. The sky was an emerald blue just before the sun rose this morning. Not a cloud in the sky and the air had a crisp,chilly feel to it. After a quick breakfast I headed out and climbed into the photoblind. I waited for what seemed an eternity until I heard the skittering of a squirrel climbing up onto the bird feeder. I photographed it for quite awhile until I moved my lens a little too fast. It panicked and bounded off and up the nearest tree. This was my favorite image from all the ones I took this morning. I really like the direct eye contact. This image was created with a Canon EOS 7D MkII camera and a TAMRON SP 150-600mm F/5-6.3 Di VC USD G2 lens at 226mm. The camera settings used were AV mode, ISO 800, F 8.0 at 1/640th of a sec. Fill flash was provided by a Canon 550 EX speedlight set to minus 1-1/3 stops. God's blessings upon your week, chris #TeamCanon, #WithMyTamron

Old Garden Gate Goes Furry

Yesterday morning I created a few more images for the old "Garden Gate Series". I was very surprised to see that my first visitor for the day was a chipmunk. They are one of the more difficult critters to photograph around here as they rarely stay in the open long enough to be photographed. I would guess that is because most everything that they run into in their daily lives wants to eat them. Following the chipmunk the birds started coming in but they were scared off by the arrival of a a Western Gray Squirrel. They are pretty much the kings and queens of the feeders. No one gets to use the feeders when they arrive. All of these images were created with a Canon 7D and a Canon 100-400 IS lens the older push pull version. Camera settings used were, AV mode, ISO 800, F 8.0. shutter speeds varied. This morning after writing this blog I photographed a Douglas tree Squirrel there too!

Squirrel Filler Image

Friday morning I made a trip up to Arcata, California for the weekend. So I wasn't able to make any blog entries due to lack of access to a computer. Here is filler image of a Douglas Tree Squirrel I created Friday before I left.I really like how the fall colors framed the squirrel! God bless, chris

Gray Day

My new feeder set up is intended to draw in some very elusive Mountain Quail. A few have come in but I haven't gotten any photogenic images of them yet. They are the holy grail quail of my front yard blind. Sometimes when I coming up the driveway I'll see a group of them leave the area by my feeder. A few years back I had a dozen of them taking a dust bath right next to my photoblind completely out of camera range as there was no way you could point a lens down onto them.

This morning I had to be content with photographing the Western Gray Squirrels as they dominated the feeders most of the time I was out there.I heard some quail but they never showed at the feeder. Even the ten oclock turkeys didn't show up. It was a Gray squirrel kind of day.