The Portrait of Mister Junco

Spring birds

Downy woodpecker, who pretended to be a robin.

Varied thrush, up high in potato (pine) tree.

Oregon dark-eyed junco, nicest picture of the lot.

All photos taken with Nikon P610.

Bunch o’ birds

Some miscellaneous bird pictures that have been piling up in the Nikon file.

And this one is an Oregon dark-eyed junco.

I’ve got my beady little eye on thee! (Robin of course.)

Slate-coloured junco and his Oregon cousin.

Northern flicker pretending to be a robin.

The Robin Tree. So-named because we have had a huge number of robins this year and they like to hang out in this tree. (Look for the blobs.)

A Feature Foto

Dark-eyed (Oregon) junco got a sunflower seed!

It seems I’m not a good photographer. For one thing, I don’t use thousands of dollars’ worth of the latest, most technologically advanced gadgetry. I mean equipment. I don’t shoot RAW and then spend 12 hours fiddling with settings to get everything absolutely perfect. Why, the images I share aren’t even 4X the size of any computer screen out there so you have to pan-and-scan to look at them. And of course after having taken photos for a little over half a century I have no understanding of the use of light, much less knowledge of composition and framing.

Seriously: what the hell do I know about photography?

Well I know how to annoy the hell out of people by doing it my way, I guess.

So here is a larger-than-usual image that I happen to think is a good one, even if it is just another of my endlessly boring “professional snapshots”.

And I’ll warn you in advance I intend to continue doing this, with the occasional ‘feature foto’ thrown in for good measure, until something stops me.

This was unexpected

It snowed Sunday night.

Enough to make the birds complain on Monday morning.

Dark-eyed junco complaining from the top of a snow-covered pine tree.

And to cause some trouble for humans as well:

I got a notice about test results which told me my doctor had the results. How does that help, exactly?

Latest image from Mars shows ice on the red planet. (Not really.)

Wednesday they are shutting off our power all day for “equipment upgrades”. I’m an engineer; I will simply tie in the generator and keep going. I don’t know what everyone else is expected to do.

Pileated woodpecker inspecting a power pole.

I think I have succeeded in advancing my Master Plan, which was really unexpected.

Me & my Nikon P610, which took all these pictures.

More news as it develops.

Oh, just some pictures

I haven’t been shooting much lately, as I’ve been working on other things.

DSCN2304 — Morning – for once I don’t mind the intrusion of the wires

Cameras used: Nikon P610 & Canon T100 (55-250mm lens).

Back to birds

Some of the wildlife spotted in my yard recently.

merlin — Merlin (*Falco columbarius*), rarest bird I’ve seen here

The last one is a bit of fun: I just happened to snap the shutter when the bird’s wings were in, making it appear to hover above the branches. I haven’t been able to get a clear shot of this one yet to identify it: always too far and in bad light to get decent colour. There are two of them that like to visit this particular pine tree.