Cloudy Days

Despite the overcast skies, I tested the teleconverter on a new body. It ups the focal length but cuts the light to the sensor so it was hard to get many good photos under the poor lighting conditions. But there was some success. These three Glossy Ibis are fairly sharp and show some color against the gray sky. And the Willets in flight also came out pretty well.

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These are a Barn Swallow, a Tree Swallow and a Purple Martin. It took a bit of post-processing to get these!

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The cloud cover lightened up a bit and it was easier to get these photographs of a mother American Black Duck and her ducklings.

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There were a few Snowy Egrets near the ducks. This one was actively chasing small fish in the marsh.

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A trip to the shore a few days later resulted in my first glimpse of a newly hatched Piping Plover this summer. Mom was chasing him around the beach and he was pretty much ignoring her. Piping Plover chicks are very precocious and are out the nest in short order.

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I did some “out the window” photography on the days I couldn’t get into the field. This is a Downy Woodpecker parent feeding a youngster at the suet feeder pole. The fledgling can still manage to coax the adult into feeding it by fluttering it’s wings and squawking. But it won’t be much longer before the parenting instinct wears off.

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A pair of Cardinals having a lunch date at my feeder.

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Here is a Chipmunk that took a break from digging holes in the lawn and flower beds to look for the legendary, and non-existent, path to my feeder from the nearby trees.

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The Chipmunk, his many cousins and a mob of Gray Squirrels keep searching for a way into the feeders even though none have succeeded. They don’t starve with all the seeds scattered by the birds and the acorns from all the oak trees around the area. So don’t feel too bad for them.