It’s fun to photograph Chickadees. The other, bigger birds are always very wary around the feeders but not the little chickadees. They don’t care who’s around. They just want to eat and, if you’re in the way, they’ll just use you as an interim perch. They’re so small and fast, you never get to see the beauty of their wing forms as you can in the larger birds like herons or swans. So I baited a branch, set up the camera a few feet away, and focused on the food. They’d pop into frame and snatch some seed. Then I’d start shooting, as I panned ahead in the direction I “guessed” they might exit. Tricky timing. At first I ended up with a lot of empty backgrounds and just bits of bird in view. But gradually I got good enough at reading chickadee body language to snag a few keepers, including these shots that I combined to show three stages of lift off.
The herons and the geese were arriving earlier every morning. So to avoid having to wake up in the dark to get into position in the island hunting blind and sit for an hour before they showed up, I decided to sleep overnight in the blind. The bad news. It was cold. Despite several layers and a good sleeping bag, it was a restless night. Twice I got up to put on more layers. Then a heron landed next to the tent and let out a huge croak. Finally, a big tail slap from a nearby beaver woke me, no doubt upset by the roar of my snoring. The good news. It got colder. When morning sunlight hit the chilled water it created a mist. And when the geese landed in this fog, breathing hard from flying, I was able to capture their warm, puffs of breath, backlit by the sunrise in the frigid morning air. Cool.
