Northern Cardinal

Photos of Northern Cardinals are perpetually good sellers. No surprise, this a beautiful and familiar bird to people across much of North America. I photographed these in central Texas yesterday, using a 1DsIII with a 500/4IS lens & 2x convertor. I chose to use this camera body over the 50D because I was working at fairly close range with birds landing on predictable perches (so I could prefocus). In low light - like these were shot in - the file quality of the 1DsIII appears much better than the 50D.

I sat virtually motionless on the ground near the feeding station for 6 hours to get these and several other species that were coming in. Unfortunately at the end of the day I found a tick crawling up my shorts and thankfully removed it before it had a chance to embed itself. While I admire the survival adaptations of ticks, I prefer not to be the parisitized host!

Northern Cardinal (male)

Northern Cardinal (female)

Birds - Central Texas

Just a quick post before I crash out... I'm fried after a scorching day here in central Texas!

I've been photographing from a blind for the past couple days, trying to improve my coverage of a few species as well as adding some new ones to my collection. It's been extremely dry here this winter, so the birds are easily attracted to water fountains/drips.

This has been a good opportunity to put the 50D body through the paces, using it with the 500/4IS and a 1.4x teleconvertor. I've shot thousands of photos, but the keeper ratio for this kind of shooting is painfully low. Here are a few I managed to process so far....

Wild Turkey head


Northern Cardinal

Lincoln's Sparrow