I’ve been trying to shoot birds lately. With my camera mind you, not with a shotgun. Anyway, difficult thing to do. I often hear them, but don’t see them. And just before I do see them, they see me and fly off. Occasionally I manage to get a decent photo and sometimes I post them in my ‘normal’ posts, but more often I get lousy shots that I find difficult to delete, because they are the only shots of that particular bird I have. Apart from the robin. I have loads of robin-photos. He follows me around the garden, trying to get into the picture.
The not so good shots are therefore pointlessly hanging around in my computer, until it’s Sunday. Yay! Sunday Selections time. Hosted by the lovely Kim from Frogpondsrock. If you, like I, have folders full of photos waiting to be seen, hop over to the rocking frog ponds, follow the almost non-existent rules and join in.
I can see two birds in this shot. A male ‘merel’ (in Dutch) or blackbird and a ‘koperwiek’ or redwing.
A ‘koolmees’ or great tit. Strange name.
The robin managed to get his photo taken. Again.
This is a ‘winterkoninkje’ or wren (I think. I’m sure it’s a winterkoninkje, but not sure of its English name). It is one of the smallest birds in Europe, about 10 centimetres long. His tail always points upwards. It’s a quick mover and builds its nests near the ground in hedges or shrubs. Somewhere dense enough to get some shelter and feel safe.
This is more of a close up, but he just wouldn’t sit still *sigh*. Still, I’m very happy that I did get a shot of him/her. I will persist and do my best to get a terrific photo of a ‘winterkoninkje’ one day. We’ll have cake that day.
Oh, and look who I’ve spotted in the garden, checking out trees to build a home in perhaps? Or more likely, looking for food. I suspect he’ll rather have a dead birch, there are plenty of them around, to make his nest in.
Yep, it is a ‘grote bonte specht’ or woodpecker. Perhaps it is the same one I photographed with his family last year? Who knows.
Your wren looks like the Carolina Wrens we have here. Small, quick, and very sweet. Your robin looks smaller than ours. Beautiful pictures! I follow another blog "Serendipitous" and she has posted some beautiful cardinal and blue jay pictures recently.
ReplyDeleteHaha, this one MUST be a Carolina Wren for my name is... Carolina ;-)
DeleteI'll go over to your blog later and try to find the Serendipitous blog. I'm a 'member' of a photography site and other, better, photographers over there have just stunning bird photos. But they almost freeze to death in a little tent to get THE shot. I'm not prepared to go that far ;-)
I think you got some very nice shots of the different birds. I have no idea what birds names are except for something obvious like a red cardinal or blue jay. Other than that I'm not too good identifying them. We do have an eagle that lives right behind our farm in the trees by the river but I haven't seen him yet. If I do I'd love to get a picture of him.
ReplyDeleteOoo, an eagle! He must be easy to spot, being a big bird (are you blind my dear?) Anyway, should you get a photo of him, you just have to post it ;-)
DeleteI love your birds. Your great tit looks a little small for his/her name though.
ReplyDeleteBirds can become an obsession I have found. And yes, they will rarely stay still long enough for that 'great shot'.
I know you love birds. Our are not as exotic as yours. Although yours seem probably not that exotic to you :-) There are even smaller tits (I keep chuckling at that name), hence the 'Great'. I'll try to get shots of the other ones, who knows. I'm slowly getting better at doing a tree impression ;-)
DeleteI love looking at birds, but I have a bird phobia when it comes to having them anywhere near me. Love the colouring on the great tit.
ReplyDeleteMy sister has the same fear. Doesn't like the wings flapping around her head. And if you've seen Hitchcock's Birds, I can sort of understand that phobia ;-)
DeleteI find your bird photos so interesting. Thank you. I will do a similar post soon for you so that I can share my Australian birds with you. The Aussie birds are just as tricky to photograph, except for the robins who also follow me around in the wintertime hoping that I will turn some bark over and make his dinner appear like magic.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to your Aussie birds photos :-)
DeleteI once travelled with Scottish birdwatchers for about a week. If I was telling them something and they spotted a bird: I had to stop talking, because no-one was listening! It was quite fun though: they had massive cameras and bird spotting equipment!
ReplyDeleteBirdwatchers are a wonderful species ;-)
DeleteYes, it's a wren in English, and it's a great picture, too - they're such shy birds! In fact, I think you've done pretty well on all of them.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting to read your Dutch words for the different birds. I wonder if the migratory ones get confused... 'What? What's that? You talkin' to me?' LOL!
LOL
DeleteWell, I do understand that birds in the city 'tweet' in a different dialect than the same species in the country. Let alone when they come from a different country. Do you think that they maybe do language courses before they migrate to another country? Or do they carry a guide with translations for: Do you know where the nearest toilet is?, etc.? Gawd, I've just blown my mind ;-)
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ReplyDeleteWe have lots of photos like your first one, too:-) I rather like them, though, for the thrill of having managed to take them in the first place and as a way of recording what comes into the garden. I haven't seen a wren for years though I'm sure they must be around - one of the commonest garden birds, apparently.
ReplyDeleteI see wrens almost every day. And lots of other birds that I haven't managed to capture (with my camera) yet. As soon as I reach for the Canon (perhaps it's in the name) they disappear. Ah well, we must have goals in life ;-)
DeleteI like your lousy shots of birds. They're better than any of my lousy shots of ANYTHING.
ReplyDelete