Birds springing to life

As winter came to a close I decided to try get some shots of the birds out and about preparing for nesting. What I really wanted was some good song trush shots. Another species I regularly see but whose photographs rarely seem to work out. I guess because it’s hard to get to their eye level and because they tend to be in shadowy parts. Anyway, here’s some early attempts at finding some of the more common species of songbird in the city at the moment.

Hooded crow

Little magpies. There was five of them fighting on the ground. 

Starlings in a field, showing the yellow bill colour that they develop for the breeding season

Always nice to see the various colours hidden in the starlings plumage

House sparrow

A female chaffinch which decided to pose for the camera

Long tailed tit. Frustrating bird to photograph as it sits still for only a few seconds. Some day I'll actually get a good shot of one!

Needs no introduction. Robin patrolling UCC

Same bird

One very nervous blackbird in UCC

Some song trush shots

Easily overlooked. Personally I like all the patterns in the plumage

A single redwing trush in the city. Hardly a sign of spring, but since I have 2 other turdus trushes in this post, I figured, why not.

Heronics

Lots of herons around at the moment. Including one very tame one in the park. Presumably the same bird that I have seen small children chasing in the past. It seems to be perfectly contend with just strolling away at a leisurely pace rather then flying away.

By the way I should mention. The spam blocker on blogger seems to be working less effectively then it used to. Hence some of the comments are getting through. Don’t click on the links whatever you do! You’ll recognize these comments by the bizarre phrasing

Thank you berry much

A few weeks back I had the pleasure of meeting another fellow birder, Karl Woods, for a day of birding. We decided to go find the large group of waxwings seen in Carrigtwohill. Upon arrival the waxwings seemed to have gathered at the top of a distant tree well out of camera view and I feared that the dull weather might keep me from getting any shots at all.

Luckily the waxwings had other plans and descended on the berry shrubs right next to us. As you can imagine this drastically improved my odds of getting a good shot. They also seemed less shy then the Finbarr’s waxwings (strength in numbers?). One thing I continuously find with waxwings is that when they are close, the weather is bad and when the weather is good the waxwings are always distant. Hence, I never quite get the shot I am after. This is my fifth waxwing shoot this winter, and yet I don’t feel I have done this stunning little bird justice!

I might have considered blurring out the window in the background to emphasize the foreground, but I rather like the landing waxwing in the shot.

Nice to see so many waxwings gathered together.

Finding a cedar waxwing on Cedar road, would have been poetic, don't you think ;)

We finished off the day at Atlantic pond where we saw a ring billed gull, if I’m not mistaking the same one that I had seen earlier at the Gate cinema. Unfortunately I didn’t manage to photograph him (this time). All in all a great day!