- I try not to think about it…
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Rough year or something? I haven’t really even been trying and I’m up to 107. I could easily be over 200 with a run out to the coast. I’m looking forward to my trip to London in June. I really want to do well and see a lot of the common birds.
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I’m at 95 species this year! (Starting Jan1 2026) All of these are from my once-a-week bird walks. My observations are split between iNat and Merlin.
Edit: just reached 100 :]
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I can’t wait for spring migration, until then I have about 30 or so since Jan 1st.
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Was doing one of my ornithology courses quizes when I descided to google about a new bird I learnt about: Specificaly, whether the Albert’s lyrebird is a mimic or not. Then came the ai summary:
Seriously, Why does this exist?! It makes googling a pain ;-;
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Not a mimic, then goes on to say exactly the opposite!
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Been practicing with my camera, and gained these photos!
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This Lil koel who visits my house for four hours a day.
This black kite that’s barely unfocused
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A pigeon. Not much to say, really.
Black kite.
Also this parakeet who i forgot
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Nice, I love the first one.
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That is my nemesis bird
I’ve tried to find it in Goa but somehow missed it :(
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Oh my god! These are great! I love the lighting on the bluebird(?) especially!
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Correct eastern bluebird
American Goldfinch
Dark eyed Junco
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Great images - they would be excellent for a birders quiz.
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This beautiful gentleman is a male koel, and eas a nice surprise to wake up to :D here’s him with his mate.
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All of your shots are really good but I especially love the pigeon (I’m one of the few feral pigeon fans LOL) and the parakeet photos!
Amazing work you have there, and great camera!
Well done, you’re mastering it already!
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Ty dude! I’m experimenting with the photo settings and lightings and it seems to be working :D
Btw is shutterspeed important to photograph super fast birds like sunbirds (aka discount hummingbirds)? I can’t seem to get any photos that don’t look like abstract art pieces.
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I am also in southeastern Pennsylvania. I have really enjoyed this winter with all of the cold and snow and ice - it is so much more beautiful than a mild winter! And the birding has been great! I especially love the opportunity to photograph songbirds on snow, and waterfowl on ice. Yesterday I found some Gadwall on the ice at Silver Lake Nature Center in Bristol, and this morning I had 6 Bluebirds at the backyard feeder - a record number for our yard!
What birding have you been doing around here of late?
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Great shots you have there. I’m glad you seem to be enjoying your new camera. I think you’re right about the importance shutter speed. Personally, I think it’s nearly always the most important of the three aspects of the exposure triangle to get right. For that reason when shooting birds I nearly always use one of the semi-automatic modes on my camera where I set the shutter speed and allow the camera to make other decisions.
I don’t know if it’s useful to anyone, but here are the sort of exposure choices that I tend to make.
Shutter speed: Generally, I like to keep to the old rule of thumb about matching shutter speed to focal length. For moving birds it’s more important to have the speed high. I tend to work with three main speeds, though I will push the boundaries if necessary. 1/800 for slow moving birds. 1/1000 if the light is good or the bird is faster. 1/1250 for very fast moving birds and/or very good lighting conditions. We don’t have hummingbirds, but I’d imagine you might want to be operating in the 1/1600+ territory with them. For sedentary birds, I find the modern anti-shake camera facilities to be excellent. I tend to use 1/800 as my base setting and drop down after the initial shots, if needed. Contrary to what I said above about focal length, I’ve found that I can get workable pictures as low as 1/100 with an 800mm lens - I’m not saying that’s easy though, and in most cases not necessary.
Aperture: Most of the time I leave this on f/11, I find that’s enough for most small to medium birds. If the light is good enough I might go up to f/13 for bigger birds and very occasionally I may go higher than that to get a whole flock in.
ISO: Whilst I like to keep this as low as possible, it is usually the factor that I’m most prepared to sacrifice if that’s what’s needed to get the shot - hence it’s usually on auto for me. I’m not sure how useful it is discussing specific ISO numbers as they seem to vary a lot between different cameras - and they seem to be getting better all the time. That said, on my camera I like it to be under 1000 if possible, but where necessary I have gone as high as 25,600 - those are very messy shots though.
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