I had a wonderful day outside with my birds yesterday. The Pine Siskins were here again along with the mega-flock of Goldfinches (now up to 60 birds)House Finches, Juncos, White-throated and Song Sparrows, Cardinals, Red-bellied, Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers, Tufted Titmouse, Black-capped Chickadees, White-breasted Nuthatches, Brown Creepers, juvenile male Red-winged Blackbirds, Mourning Doves and Blue Jays. A Juvie Sharp-shinned Hawk was flying overhead but didn't stop for dinner, thank goodness.
I was working with the 1.4 teleconverter because I was shooting the smaller birds when this Mourning Dove flew down and perched so prettily on my reed fence. Well, knee-jerk reaction I had to point the camera at it and the bird didn't fly off but just kept looking over its shoulder at me. I shot off several frames at F8 and realized that the only thing in focus was the head so I kept shooting a couple frames and going up a stop until I got to F22 and was getting shutter speeds of 1/30th and motion blur. This particular shot was the best of the lot at F22 and 1/45th of a second. So here is this pretty bird showing off all those lovely feathers down the back. Hope you enjoy as much as I did taking it.
