I had a lot of trouble identifying what kind of bird this was, but I believe that it is an Anhinga that is drying. Their feathers are not waterproof like many birds that hunt fish underwater, so once it has finished hunting, it must come out and dry itself before it can fly well. Here is an Anhinga drying itself so it can take off after a hunt. I particularly like the reflection in the water of him. This is one of my favorite photos from Captiva.
Canon T3i, f5.6, 1/1000 sec, ISO – 1000, 300mm
You may be asking yourself, who is this guy and where are his posts? The answer is I’m nobody, and I’m lazy. 
Regardless, here is a photo from Captiva Florida. Apparently Osprey Nests were everywhere in the area, and so as we passed one, I got the evil eye from one of their tenants. In typical considerate fashion, I then took its picture. So here is me getting the evil eye from an Osprey.
Canon T3i, f/5.6, 1/1000 sec, ISO 125, 210mm
So, as we were out on a cruise ship enjoying our dolphinless dolphin cruise, we came upon an osprey nest, and out flew this osprey with half a fish in his claw! The sad part is that instead of having a decent distance lens on my camera, I had my 50mm for taking photos of the dolphins who tend to play very close to the boats (when they show up). So unfortunately, while I did grab a photo of this guy, to make the fish visible, I had to crop severely, and I could have taken this one as an up close and personal shot. I’m sad about the lack of fine detail do to the distance, but still, I was so amazed to see the half fish in his claws, I just had to post this one up. So here goes, an osprey who had his dinner interrupted by our cruise.
Canon T3i – f/4.5, 1/1000sec, ISO-100, 50mm
And just to show how severely cropped that is, here’s the original
I have recently acquired a birdfeeder that is built to attract finches, and specifically, it says it attracts American Goldfinches. And here is one hanging out on my birdfeeder!
Canon T3i, f/5.6, 1/400sec, ISO 160, 300mm
So, both in Captiva and at home, I have recently been quite interested in birds. I have two shots that I took, 1 in Florida and 1 at home, that have birds flying toward me. In one, the focus is razor sharp on the bird, in the second, the focus is on the fence behind the bird that he was sitting on before he took off. There’s such a difference in these two photos, and of course the focus makes all the difference.
The moral I’m hinting at is the difficulty with getting a solid flying shot, especially when the bird is flying toward you and there is a solid amount of objects behind them. Here’s the two shots to compare.
And the second
I have a lot of pictures from Florida that will make their way onto the blog here in the near future, but for today, I just took this shot in my yard, and I liked it, so I thought I’d share. This is a Chipping Sparrow and I love his cute little red head. I hope you all enjoy him in his flower (read, weed) garden.
Canon T3i – f/5.6, 1/1000sec, ISO – 1250, 250mm
While enjoying the beaches of Captiva Florida, I took several photos of the local wildlife. I won’t be able to update my blog for a little while, so I thought I would show a more humorous photo of a Seagull that I took that makes me laugh every time I see his face. It’s as if he’s looking at me going, “What are you pointing that at me for? Don’t make me come down there!” Here he is.
Canon T3i, 1/1000sec, f/5.6, 100mm, ISO 100
Just a quick cell phone camera shot I took near sunset at Captiva Island.
Enjoy!
So this is probably my favorite bird photograph yet. I’ve been trying and trying to get a shot of a bird in flight that was in focus and not too blurry. It’s harder than you would think, unless you practice, so I have been working on it. While this photo is not perfectly in focus, it’s very close, and I really love the coloring of this particular bird, that I don’t know what it is.
I’m also a fan of the way the light is hitting him, so I thought I’d share. One thing to note, he’s carrying dinner back home in his beak. I hope you guys like him.
Canon T3i – ISO 250, 1/1000sec, f/5, 120mm
So, the Cardinal bird I posted earlier was in a singing competition with the Western Meadowlark I posted earlier. While my photos of the Western Meadowlark show him singing, the Cardinal does not. The main reason, is that I think Cardinals are ugly when they sing. However, I did take photos of him singing and wanted to share.
So here’s the first one.
Canon T3i – ISO 400, 1/1600sec, f/8, 300mm
And zoomed way in to show you just how freaky they look while singing.
CRAZY BIRD!
