Birds Show Birds

Yesterday I was very saddened. The last Cygnet of the four that I had been documenting fell victim to the Snapping turtles. In the matter of a week, they were all gone. The two adults are still sticking around the area and seem to be hanging around the same nest they reared the babies in. Additionally, another nest I had been watching for activity apparently was attacked by...something. I found that mother sitting on the nest dead yesterday, eggs unhatched. Spring may be great for the plants but it is hell on the wildlife.

That said, today was more uplifting. This group is one of two other nests I've been watching. Both nests have produced Cygnets the last two days. This nest is probably located in the best spot of the two, as far as being away from the snappers, but it is open to arial attack by hawks, eagles and owls. Life goes on and these guys now have their chance. I'll try to follow along as they grow, hopefully unmolested, and post whatever images I get of their journey here.

Fingers crossed!
swan nest kay (2).JPG
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OVI04341-Edit.JPG
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First time trying to do wildlife in Black and White only ... and I failed. After a few tries I copped out of my month of B&W only and went back to colour. I couldn't make it work, to make better and more interesting images just on composition and drama. Also, the colours were too intense to "ignore" after a pretty depressing 6 months of bad weather.

OVI04395-Edit.JPG
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Not sharing with me eh?

OVI04417-Edit.JPG
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This one took me by surprise because I didn't recognise what it was from the flap of their wings, it was faster than usual and I thought it was a pigeon. When I realised it might not be it was starting to veer off away from me. I think it has something quite big in its talons, probably a pigeon by the colour.

OVI04472.JPG
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It did come back about half an hour later but I only managed to get a poor grab picture, it still had that big blob with it. By the time I checked if I got the focus right it disappeared again ... damn.

OVI04518-Edit.JPG
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Just a lonely little Robin in the forest.

OVI04524-Edit.JPG
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Plenty of gulls flying around, being close to the coast.
 
L0n3Gr3yW0lf said:
Curious George here, did you use the Pre Buffer feature or did you manual One focused and sprayed in burst to get the shot?
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I set up my camera on a tripod with a gimbal head and shot a lot of single one shots. I did have 5 fps turned on, but didn't use it. Mostly the swallows flying in were out of focus as the camera was locking onto the heads of the birds in the nests, but I did get a couple of shots that were focused on the flying male.
 
will focus said:
Yesterday I was very saddened. The last Cygnet of the four that I had been documenting fell victim to the Snapping turtles. In the matter of a week, they were all gone. The two adults are still sticking around the area and seem to be hanging around the same nest they reared the babies in. Additionally, another nest I had been watching for activity apparently was attacked by...something. I found that mother sitting on the nest dead yesterday, eggs unhatched. Spring may be great for the plants but it is hell on the wildlife.

That said, today was more uplifting. This group is one of two other nests I've been watching. Both nests have produced Cygnets the last two days. This nest is probably located in the best spot of the two, as far as being away from the snappers, but it is open to arial attack by hawks, eagles and owls. Life goes on and these guys now have their chance. I'll try to follow along as they grow, hopefully unmolested, and post whatever images I get of their journey here.

Fingers crossed!
View attachment 388223
Click to expand...
this must be hell on you as well. To witness the ups and downs day by day. Have you become jaded by it?
 
lucien said:
this must be hell on you as well. To witness the ups and downs day by day. Have you become jaded by it?
Click to expand...
It really bummed me out. It doesn't seem fair that an entire hatch gets picked off until they are gone. Watching them learn their way around you can identify the individual cygnets by markings or traits. It ends up being personal.
 
A strange morning. Early today a friend from down the road asked whether I could document her releasing a small sparrow hawk back into the mountain.
It had chased a dove and flown into a window at her house and banged its head bloody. She had taken it to an avian vet specialist, the bird spent overnight
there, was fed a frozen mouse somewhere along the line but now had an empty crop and was ready to go back outdoors.

Web 1500_ZFC_5764 Ros Mountain Bird release.jpg
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the next sequence is stills taken from the (very) short video I managed to film

SCRN moment of release Ros bird.JPG


SCRN Ros releasing bird 5769.JPG


SCRN-2 Ros releasing bird 5769.JPG
 
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