Arizona Wild Bird Photos
IN NO WHERE DESERT ARIZONA
02/15/2004
Sunrise 7:30 - temp. approx. 60* no wind, but that changed about 8:30. 68* was the high for the day.
I guess the first thing I had better do is set the table before those hungry birds get here.
Just how much nicer could it get?
I do this twice a week weather & road conditions permitting.
About a dozen oranges and 6 suet blocks.
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Now that the Dove season is over they inundated my feeding station by the hundreds.
In just the last week they eat up 75 pounds of seed, but I intend to put a halt to that.
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One Dove shield
This is the feeder they emptied. When empty it holds about 70 pounds of seed.
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Next I have a Dove proof feeder.
When a bird comes and perches on the ledge to eat it will close it if the it weighs to much.
I have set the spring so it will only allow the small birds to eat.
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Well, now that all is ready I shall retreat to my blind and wait.
I normally put a tarp around the back side so you can't see through it.
I also clothespin the netting around the lens & if I don't make any quick moves the birds don't seem to fly away.
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As soon as the seed and oranges are out and I stop moving around the Finches and Sparrows flock in by the hundreds. As a rule I don't pay them much attention however one Finch did catch my eye. It was a bright orange, so I fired off a few shots of it. I have never seen an Orange Finch. I know it's still just a House Finch but it's just that I have never seen an orange one out here before.
Photographing a small bird like a Finch from over 40 feet away is no small task,
even with a 500 mm lens with a 1.4 teleconverter on it making it a 700 mm lens.
This is why the images are a bit on the soft focus side.
I am showing 6 different views so that you can see the different angles or sides of the bird
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These photos do not do the orange Finch justice,
however you can see that it is orange and not red as most House Finches are.
Below is a red House Finch just so you can see the difference.
They sure like those oranges.
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Another visitor I have not seen here in quite some time.
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I'll let you the viewers decide on this one.
All know is that it is a Northern Flicker of some type or another.
He's eating the suet blocks and not the oranges.
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My resident C/B Thrashers were there.
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This pair is always together. If one comes in the other follows in a few seconds.
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And the White-crown sparrows were there in numbers also along with my resident Gila Woodpeckers.
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Well that's about it for Sunday the 15th. of February 2004