The Mob

This morning I got up before the sun rose to take some Bandtail Pigeon images. Wild Bandtails are unlike city pigeons in that they are extremely wary and don't like to be around people. They are also a beautiful bird with bright yellow orange feet and a irridescent purple patch up along their neck along with a striking white neck band that gives them their name.




They are also part of the mob. They together with the Stellars Jays and Gray Squirrels control the bird feeders at my house. If they are on the feeder it is rare to see any other bird great enough to be on the feeder at the same time.There is a distinct pecking order to who gets to be on the feeder. The squirrels are at the top of the heap followed by the Bandtails and then the Stellars Jays.

I sat in my rolling blind (http://diyphotocheapodepot.blogspot.com/2009/12/final-touches-to-photo-blinds.html) for about an hour before the Bandtails finally overcame their wariness to come in to the feeder. When they did it was with a lot of pushing,shoving and squabbling. I'm always amazed at how many pigeons can squeeze onto the feeder. I finally quit when the lighting got too harsh for photography. It was a nice morning for photography.






God's blessings to all,

chris

No Photography Day

Yesterday I didn't create any images in camera but I did create some on the computer. It was a computer catch up day in processing some images that needed some work. If you are like me that often times means spending quite a few hours at it as I mostly shoot in RAW + JPEG. The only time I shoot in just JPEG is when I'm going to shoot in volume and give most of the shots away. A good example of this is when I shoot images for Vacation Bible school at church. I will shoot several hundred images that I'm going to give away. I think the processing time would kill me in that case.

Yesterday I rescued one image of a Stellar's Jay that I really like. When I was creating the image I chopped the poor little guys tail tip off . (He screeched a little bit and then settled down) but I really liked the rest of the image. So I extended the canvas on one edge and duplicated a tiny section of tai,l flipped it and then added it onto the Jay. Then I did some cloning around it to blend it in. Now that I have told you what I did I'm sure the very alert observer will be able to pick it out. Otherwise I don't feel that it would be noticeable. Take a look and see if you agree with that or not.

OK. OK so it was a photography day. Just not using the camera.

Sincerely and God bless everyone,

chris