One Day in Photos — September 5, 2022

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these. Let me explain . . . on Monday, Labor Day here in the US, I started the day by sitting outside and photographing hummingbirds. Mind you, there were lots of other birds around, but I concentrated on the hummingbirds. Then, throughout the morning, I shot more photos.

For the record, 170 photos were snapped, of which I kept 123. The SmugMug gallery (HERE) has 75 of those 123.

How many am I going to show here? Don’t know yet, but not that many.

These photos are all cropped from the originals. Even after cropping, the photos are about 2400 pixels per side, and I’m linking photos about half that size (meaning, SmugMug offers larger versions, as will the slideshow at the end).

This particular bird is guarding three feeders and effectively keeping other birds from them. The other three feeders I have under the pergola are getting a lot of traffic (anywhere from 10 to 15 birds swarming and feeding there).

There are about twenty photos of this bird, but rather than showing each one, I made a little animation. If interested, all of the photos used in the animation are in SmugMug.

I tried aligning the frames, but I didn’t spend a tremendous amount of time doing it, hence the little wobble. Also, the last six frames are not the same size (my bad).

A few notable shots from the sequence are below . . .

Next up, we have a sparrow that baffled me with its behavior.

It kept trying to pull at a grass blade. Now, I see birds pulling at grass blades (live and dead . . . er . . . the grass blades, not the birds) when they are breeding and building nests . . . but it’s September. I can’t imagine this bird is planning to nest this late.

There are twelve photos in this sequence, and once again, it’s easier and less boring to show them as an animation (and, again, the originals are available in SmugMug) . . .

In the end, it does seem to realize the dead grass might be better . . . but it turns out it’s just as tough to pull, and it eventually gives up and flies off.

Just to clarify, that weedful area is my neighbor’s, and I don’t mind because it offers food and shelter for a variety of critters.

Around mid-morning, we decided to swing over to the Crab Orchard Refuge to see if anything was going on . . .

It turns out that the American White Pelicans are back, probably stopping over on their way back down South.

Because there aren’t many, they also seem more cagey regarding having humans around. The moment I drove up, they started swimming away, and they were already a fair distance (at least 100 yards or more). The above is cropped to about 75% of the original, and this next one is cropped to about half.

Meaning, that unlike photos from last year, there’s not much detail to see. I’m hoping to once again see large flocks over the next month or so.

Meanwhile, here’s another crop . . .

. . . that I then processed with Topaz GigaPixel to double in size (and crop closer) . . .

It will do in a pinch, but it doesn’t come close to the closeups I’ve gotten in years past.

There was another area where a few birds were floating, and this was a bit closer, but they immediately began to swim away (look at the water they’re pushing ahead of them) . . .

They’re also not great photos because it was midday, and the combination of bright white feathers, the sun high above, and the dark background, all make for less-than-ideal shooting.

Here is a short at 100mm zoom (150mm eq. 35mm) showing the area.

As a reminder, there are more photos in the gallery, but, in fairness, they are near-duplicates of what I’m showing.

That’s a shot at 300mm zoom (450mm eq. 35mm) . . . there’s not much to be done with those, but it gives an idea of what we saw.

On the other hand, if I looked a bit to my left and at the ground . . .

An Eastern Box Turtle . . .

It sat there, about 8 feet from me, and did not move even when I got closer. Then, I figure I would get in the car and drive up a bit and stand guard to make sure it would safely cross the causeway . . . but, it never moved. I kept moving further and further away, but I never did see it cross. Luckily, no other cars were about, so I was fairly confident it would be OK.

But, while on the causeway, I should have realized (from having seen it in past years) that it’s on the pelican’s flight path. Meaning, that I had to scramble to try and catch a small group of them going from one side of the lake to the other.

Only six photos, but again I made a small animation . . .

In case anyone is wondering, yes, I could have tried to film using the D7500 (what I was shooting with), but because I can’t film while looking through the viewfinder, that camera is a tad difficult to maneuver, focus, and track subjects while holding it at arm’s length so that I can use the rear screen to see what I’m filming.

I had the P900 with me, but it was off and in the camera bag . . . I wouldn’t have had the time to deploy it.

You would think I would be done, but as I was outside the car filming the pelicans, I noticed, near the water’s edge, a heron right next to where I had stopped. Odd that, because they don’t usually hang around that close. But, this guy (or gal) looked in trouble.

Its beak open, it looked as if it was panting, with the throat inflating and deflating, and the tongue keeping pace. It’s difficult to tell from the photos (videos, I should have shot), but the white triangle area of the throat (under its beak and eye) flopped in and out as it panted.

I have a fair number of photos because it sat there for a goodly amount of time, but they are basically all the same . . . still, they are included in the SmugMug gallery for them who are interested.

But, eventually, it took flight . . .

As mentioned, these are the more interesting photos from Labor Day, but there are more in the SmugMug Gallery, and many are near identical to each other. Still, if you want to sit through all of them, here they are in a slideshow.

Slide show of One Day In Photos — September 5, 2022 (76 photos and three animations)

That’s it. This post has ended . . . except for the stuff below.

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