Visigoths of the woods

COMMON GRACKLES, GREEN, MICHIGAN, JULY 25, 2019

Pentax K-3
300mm Pentax-F f4.5 with 1.4x Pentax extender (420mm)
1/400 sec. f8
ISO 1600

Rarely ever am I able to capture two birds side by side in one photograph, but these grackles, part of a noisy, bullying flock that took over our feeders one day, complied nicely. The photo just begs for a comic caption such as "You didn't tell me your mother was coming to stay for a month!"

Cold and wet

RUBY-THROATED HUMMINGBIRD, GREEN, MICHIGAN, JUNE 5, 2019

Pentax K-3
Pentax-F 300mm f4.5 with 1.4x Pentax extender (420mm)
1/200 sec. f8
ISO 1600

All puffed up in a tiny down jacket, this hummer huddles against fog and cold during a gray and blustery day on the shore of Lake Superior. It's a male ruby-throated, but its throat will appear black if the light is not just so. I shot the photo through the living room window.

Hairy woodpecker

MALE HAIRY WOODPECKER, GREEN, MICHIGAN, MAY 29, 2019

Pentax K-3
Pentax-F 300mm with Pentax 1.4x extender (420mm)
1/3200 sec. f6.7
ISO 1600

The hairy woodpecker and its smaller lookalike, the downy, are familiar denizens of our Upper Michigan cabin's bird feeders. I used the largest possible aperture on this system in order to throw the background out of focus as much as possible while retaining sufficient depth of field.

Today's hummer

FEMALE RUBY-THROATED HUMMINGBIRD, GREEN, MICHIGAN, MAY 25, 2019

Pentax K-3
Pentax-F 300mm f4.5 plus Pentax 1.4x converter (420mm)
1/2000 sec. f8
ISO 800

The hummers are plentiful at our Lake Superior cabin this year, as always, and they make excellent photographic subjects, The angle on this one is unusual.

Scarlet Tanager

SCARLET TANAGER, GREEN, MICHIGAN, MAY 22, 2019

Pentax K-3
Pentax-F 300mm f4.5 with 1.4x Pentax extender (420mm)
1/800 f7.1, handheld
ISO 1600

This species has been a rara avis in our neck of the Upper Peninsula woods, but quite a few have been sighted in the vicinity in the last week. This one is the first I've ever seen, and it makes quite the splash of red even on a dull day. Now I'm going to try to capture it on a tree branch rather than on the man-made suet feeder.

Common Grackle

COMMON GRACKLE, GREEN, MICHIGAN, SEPTEMBER 17, 2018

Pentax K-3
Pentax-F* 300mm f4.5 with Pentax 1.4x converter (420mm)
1/160 sec. f6.7
ISO 1600

A flock of about 20 noisy grackles invaded our back yard this morning, bullying all the songbirds into fleeing. I hope they don't return.

Female rose-brested grosbeak III

FEMALE ROSE-BREASTED GROSBEAK, GREEN, MICHIGAN, AUGUST 11, 2018

Pentax K-3
Pentax-f* 300mm f4.5 with Pentax 1.4x extender (420mm)
1/3200 sec. f6.7
ISO 1600

Turned up this one while reviewing old frames from a month ago. As with the female grosbeak in an earlier post, the camera was set for photographing in deep shadow when the sun suddenly came out.

Nuthatch II

RED-BREASTED NUTHATCH, GREEN, MICHIGAN, JULY 28, 2018

Pentax K-3
Pentax-F* 300mm f4.5 with Pentax 1/4x converter (420mm)
1/250 sec. f8
ISO 1600

This photo, more than any of the hundreds I've taken at our cabin's backyard feeders, best demonstrates the acrobatic appeal of the quicksilver little nuthatch.

Female rose-breasted grosbeak II

FEMALE ROSE-BREASTED GROSBEAK, GREEN, MICHIGAN, AUGUST 11, 2018

Pentax K-3
Pentax-F* 300mm f4.5 with Pentax 1.4x extender (420mm)
1/3200 sec. f6.7
ISO 1600

Another shot from three weeks ago. The lighting on this one was serendipitous. The high shutter speed comes from the camera being set to photograph in deep shade and the lens wide open. Had I thought of it, I would have reduced the ISO to 400 or even 200 for finer image quality, but this seems adequate for Internet use.

Rose-breasted grosbeak, first summer

ROSE-BREASTED GROSBEAK, FIRST SUMMER, GREEN, MICHIGAN, SEPTEMBER 1, 2018

Pentax K-3
Pentax-F* 300mm f4.5 with Pentax 1.4x converter (420mm)
1/320 sec. f6.7
ISO 1600

We'd seen one or two female grosbeaks at the feeders regularly all summer, but not a male. Until today. This very young grosbeak looks almost like a hybrid of male and female, but over the winter its colors will change until its head is mostly black and the rosy red spreads almost all over its breast. I just wish I hadn't left the car in the driveway in the rear of the shot.

Mr. and Ms. Downy

DOWNY WOODPECKERS, GREEN, MICHIGAN, AUGUST 18, 2018

Pentax K-3
Pentax-F* 300mm f4.5 with Pentax 1.4x extender (420mm)
1/500 sec. f6.7
ISO 1600

I'd never before seen both female and male downy woodpeckers together in our back yard, let alone on a single suet feeder. Probably the little ones have left the nest so Mama and Daddy can go out on a Saturday night and have some fun. The camera was hand-held, lens wide open near dusk, and the image quality not bad for such conditions.

Downy woodpecker

DOWNY WOODPECKER, GREEN, MICHIGAN, AUGUST 16, 2018

Pentax K-3
Pentax-F* 300mm f4.5 plus Pentax 1.4x extender (420mm)
1/500 sec f6.7
ISO 1600

We have a pair of Downys in our backyard, and both of them love the basketwork suet feeder Debby made at the Porcupine Mountains Folk School in 2017. This is the male, as attested by the little red yarmulke on his head.

Red-breasted Nuthatch

RED-BREASTED NUTHATCH, GREEN, MICHIGAN, AUGUST 8, 2018

Pentax K-3
Pemtax-F* 300mm f4.5 with 1.4x Pentax converter (420mm)
1/320 sec. f6.7
ISO 1600

Capturing a good shot of these amusing little songbirds can be a challenge, because they are quick to grab a seed and fly off to a tree to consume it. We always have one or two of these around our feeders, and sometimes they gorge themselves on suet as well as sunflower seeds.

I was pleased with the lens combination, which gave sharp results even in dim light.

Male goldfinch

MALE GOLDFINCH, GREEN, MICHIGAN, JULY 29, 2018

Pentax K-3
Pentax-F* 300mm f4.5 with 1.4x Pentax extender (420mm)
1/320 sec. f8
ISO 400

The goldfinch community of the forest seems to have discovered our feeders once again. Its members flock to both tiny niger seeds and large sunflower seeds, filling our back yard with their song. They're an important reason we love to spend our summers on the shore of Lake Superior.

Female rose-breasted grosbeak

FEMALE ROSE-BREASTED GROSBEAK, GREEN, MICHIGAN, AUGUST 7, 2018

Pentax K-3
Pentax-F* 300mm f4.5 with 1.4x Pentax extender
1/800 sec. f7.1
ISO 1600

We arrived at our Lake Superior cabin late in the season, and only now are the less common species coming to our backyard feeders. This handsome female grosbeak chose to feed on the ground, on sunflower seeds falling from a feeder high atop a pole.

Latest red-bellied

RED-BELLIED WOODPECKER, GREEN, MICHIGAN, AUGUST 21, 2017

Pentax K-3
Pentax-F* 300mm f4.5
1/250 sec. f4.5
ISO 1600

For some unknown reason scores of birds mobbed our feeders in the strange dusk at the height of the 71 percent solar eclipse yesterday. One of them was this male red-bellied woodpecker, a frequent visitor to our suet cages but a rare one at the seed feeders.

Hairy Woodpecker

MALE HAIRY WOODPECKER, GREEN, MICHIGAN, AUGUST 21, 2017

Pentax K-3
Pentax-F* 300mm f4.5
1/320 sec. f4.5
ISO 1600

Telling a Hairy from a Downy isn't easy, but the two markers are the long and heavy bill on the former as well as completely white, not spotted, under tail feathers. This photo was taken midway during the 71 percent eclipse of the sun August 21, requiring high ISO and a wide-open aperture.

Today's nutch

WHITE-BREASTED NUTHATCH, GREEN, MICHIGAN, JULY 22, 2017

Pentax K-3

Pentax F* 300mm f4.5 with Pentax 1.4x converter (420mm)

1/400 sec. f7.1

ISO 1600

Usually seen at our feeders as loners, this species has taken to visiting in pairs, and perhaps because of that tends to perch on the feeders for a longer time instead of quickly grabbing a sunflower seed and dashing away. That makes it easier to compose and snap a picture of the quicksilver little creatures.

Red squirrel

RED SQUIRREL, GREEN, MICHIGAN, JULY 10, 2017

Pentax K-3
Pentax-F* 300mm f4.5
1/400 sec. f5.6
ISO 1600

The red squirrel may be a pest, but it certainly is photogenic.

Merganserlings

COMMON MERGANSERS, GREEN, MICHIGAN, JUNE 8, 2017

Pentax K-3
Pentax-F* 300mm f4.5
1/800 sec f4.5
ISO 400

It was a cloudy 8 a.m. when this train of merganserlings swam by our cabin in Mama's wake, not the best conditions for photography. But even with the lens wide open and with the image heavily cropped, an acceptable photograph resulted.