I found out this week that this photo won an honorable mention in a photo contest that I entered it in:
ISO 800 4mm 0ev f/2.7 1/50
I titled this one, Siblings, it was taken last spring as part of a series of images I took of a the nest that was just outside our kitchen window. This particular image was taken with my point and shoot camera. I then cropped it and sharpened it in Photoshop. To be honest, I did minimal post editing with this photo because I thought that the picture told the story without anything added to it.
I was pleased to have won with this photo, it seems like quite an achievement to me considering the quality of competition that my camera club offers. Let me know what you think in the comments.
If you have been following my robin’s nest story, this is an update that I will tell you right now is not all good news, in fact there is very little good news. I just thought that I would put that out there first so that you can click away if you would like.
Here are the five healthy hatches on Thursday morning:
ISO 800 4mm 0ev f/2.7 1/200
On Friday morning a few of the birds had their eyes open:
ISO 800 4mm 0ev f/2.7 1/250
It was Saturday when we first noticed the falcon, or Cooper’s Hawk? I say falcon, but the truth is we are still debating which type of bird this is that is preying on the robins. We were working in the yard and the birds around started going nuts. We looked around and saw the falcon on the corner of our roof. The robins and a few blackbirds chased it off and everything calmed down.
This afternoon we were again outside when we again heard the birds and saw the falcon. My oldest child got this video of the falcon attacking the robin nest:
Here is the nest moments later:
ISO 800 4mm 0ev f/2.7 1/640
This robin could not have been any flatter or more still. It was our guess that the falcon took one baby at this time. It is not clear what happened to the three unaccounted for birds. Sometime between Friday morning and Sunday afternoon they went missing.
Then the adult robins came back:
ISO 320 50mm 0ev f/5.6 1/200
Half an hour later here is the nest again:
ISO 800 4mm 0ev f/8 1/200
Empty. I had my Canon 50D set up during the time that the last bird went missing. My pictures do not shed any light on what happened to the baby. We also had a window open and didn’t hear anything. Did the adults relocate the last baby? At this point, that is what we suspect, so we go looking. We notice an adult bird flying low into our hedgerow and we find the surviving baby. When the adult leaves, I get a photo in the hedgerow:
ISO 800 50mm 0ev f/5.6 1/50 flash used
I left the hedgerow and so did the robin, so I got this picture also:
ISO 640 50mm 0ev f/5.6 1/200
I told the robin to get back into the hedgerow, but more convincing was the fact that the adult robins came back and told the baby in no uncertain terms that it was to get back into the hedgerow. So it did.
Well, I will be keeping an eye out for this little baby. Our hedgerow is about the best place it could be right now, but until it can fly, it is still pretty vulnerable. I will take pictures and write an update if I have anything further.
If you are new to this story, here are the other posts:
The story begins here and I explain how I am getting the pictures. The first update with five hatchlings is here. The second update featuring a very crowded nest is here.
Comments? Questions? feel free to leave them below. If you have a guess to what bird of prey we have in the video, feel free to say so and explain why you think so.
I am happy to say that all five of the robins in this year’s nest have hatched. Here is a family photo:
ISO 800 4mm 0ev f/2.7 1/400
Part of the reason I am sharing this photo is because of the size difference between the birds. The five of them were hatched over a 36 hour period. Look how much bigger the one at the bottom of the frame of the photo is than his siblings. He is eating whole food now, at least some of the other birds are still on a regurgitated diet. Now that everyone is hatched the next step is to see if they will all adequately be fed.
This post is a continuation of a series. If you would like to see earlier photos of the nest and see how I am getting these photos, please click here.
I was super excited this spring when a robin began building a nest outside our kitchen window. I have written about how I set up my camera to get images of the birds. For the series of images in this post I am using my point and shoot camera. Never underestimate the usefulness of your camera that is “just” a point and shoot. I took all of these photo with my Canon Powershot:
ISO 800 4mm 0ev f/2.7 1/160
This year’s nest with five lovely blue robin eggs.
ISO 800 4mm 0ev f2.7 1/100
This robin was approximately two minutes old when I got this photo. The mother had left the nest to discard the egg shells, I watched her leave and then got the photo.
ISO 800 14mm 0ev f/5 1/60
This photo was taken 8 hours later. The feathers have started to form. When I tweeted this picture, Chris at Learning, Running, and Creating, was the first to notice how clearly you can see the second robin making its way out.
ISO 800 4mm 0ev f/2.7 1/160
So, no surprise the next morning there were two in the nest.
ISO 1600 4mm 0ev f/2.7 1/200
This photo and the next were taken this morning, and as you can see it was a busy 24 hours in the nest.
ISO 1600 4mm 0ev f/2.7 1/250
So now we are waiting for the last egg to hatch. Hopefully all the birds will make it, but in all honesty, five is a lot for one nest.
So, you might wonder why I am taking this series with my point and shoot. The answer is simple, space. My Canon 50D does not fit in this space. Or, I guess to be more exact, it fits, but then can’t focus. I have been unable to angle the 50D in a way that would allow for a picture.
Maybe you are wondering about how I get these shots with the grown robin parents around? I spend a lot of time watching from inside. My office has pretty much moved to the kitchen. The adult birds have a pretty regular schedule. Most mornings sometime after 7, and at about 4:30pm, they are out of the area. I use that time to set up and adjust my camera equipment. Also, for whatever reason, this year’s birds are pretty tolerant of me. I eat my lunch outside near them most days, and they just stay on the nest.
Thoughts about this post? feel free to leave them below in the comments section. If you haven’t seen my photos from last year and would like too, you can click here.
I am also capable of saying things in 140 characters or less. I tweet about photography @marantophoto if you would like to follow along.
This post was written in response to the WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge. The theme this week is From Above.
Photography Journal Blog 