Bird ID: Finches and Sparrows

When I have time I like to set the tripod and camera up in front of the balcony doors and take photos of the birds. We have several feeders up there, which keeps the raccoons and squirrels out of them. It's pretty wide open, of course, with only a crab apple tree down below to provide cover, so we get different birds here--or at least in different numbers--than what we get at the feeders behind my studio, which is more sheltered.

One of the varieties which seem to show up more on the balcony are the finches. I feed pretty much the same stuff in both places but the finches flock to the balcony--along with the invasive house sparrows, whose numbers seem higher this year than before. This is where we saw common redpolls and pine siskins several years ago, and where six evening grosbeaks were spotted in November--but who left before I could get any pictures of them.

Anyway, a few weeks ago I was playing with my camera, seeing what sort of quality I could get in poor lighting conditions, and noticed a pine siskin perched atop one of the feeder poles. It is the first one we've seen here in a number of years. Unfortunately I had to shoot through the window screen, which has made for a pretty poor image.

Pine siskin on our balcony.

These little birds are very easy to confuse with the female house finch, another abundant invasive. The two easiest ways to tell them apart are by looking at the wings and beak. Siskins have yellow on the front edge of their primaries, but that is hard to see in the photo above, and is not always obvious. They also have narrow, pointy beaks, used to get inside pine cones, and I find this to be the best way to tell them apart. In addition, they are smaller than the house finch, but that is difficult to judge unless the birds are side by side.

Pine siskin, front view

Below is a female house finch for comparison. Note how stout the beak of this bird is.

Female house finch, not to be confused with a pine siskin.

The American goldfinch is closer in size to the siskin and has a similar beak shape, but neither the male nor female is streaked. Male and female goldfinches look very similar in winter, but I think this is a male. The wing bars tend to be whiter than the female's, and they have a little more yellow on their heads.

American goldfinch in winter.

Here's a female house finch next to the goldfinch.

Hey, you're blocking the camera!

Winter brings a number of sparrows south to our feeders as well, including the American tree sparrow. Another easily confused bird, this little beauty looks very much like a chipping sparrow. The quickest way to tell them apart is the American tree sparrow has a yellow lower mandible...

American tree sparrow.

...and a black spot on its breast.  Also, while their ranges overlap, chipping sparrows are not generally seen in Southeast Michigan in the winter, American tree sparrows are absent in summer, so time of year can also be a hint.

A bit blurred, but note the black patch on the breast.

The dark-eyed junco is another winter sparrow that visits our feeders. I just love this little bird.

Male dark-eyed junco. The female is somewhat lighter and more brown.

And because I couldn't resist, check out this gorgeous female Northern cardinal. I have never seen a female with so much color before. I have watched her both on the balcony and behind my studio. Her colors make her easy to spot among the other female cardinals. Cardinals have been showing up in abundance again this year. I counted 12 in the crab apple tree a few days ago, and in the past I have seen as many as 22 behind my studio.

Female Northern cardinal.

New Camera! The Canon 60D

I finally did it.

After years of having camera envy, I have finally gotten myself a decent camera. Back in the days of film, the camera body itself was of less importance than the quality of the lens and the film you used. The camera body just held the film in place, and the biggest difference between models were the bells and whistles each one had.

Today, with digital cameras, the camera body may be more important than the lens. Now, instead of film, you have a digital sensor, and the quality of that sensor can make all the difference in the world when it comes to the quality of your images.

I have been shooting Canon Rebels, (which are basically a cheap line designed for those making the change from point and shoot cameras to SLR's), since I switched to digital. I went with Canon because I felt there were better options down the road, especially when it came to wildlife photography, than Nikon or Olympus or the other major brands offered. I actually really liked my first Rebel, which I bought in late 2005 primarily to take pictures of my artwork to make prints from.  I bought a second one almost two years ago to get a higher resolution (for bigger prints) and to have a second camera body to eliminate switching lenses back and forth while on the trail.

I have not been nearly as enamored with the second Rebel (a T1i) as I was with my first Rebel. I don't know if it is the T1i line or if it's my particular camera but I have fought with the exposure with it since I got it. I have to manually adjust nearly every shot since to leave the exposure at normal usually means shots are overexposed by at least one stop. So I set the camera to underexpose everything, which is fine until I try to shoot something in dim light and forget--I have missed countless shots because of this.

In addition, I have been wanting something that produced sharper images. I don't necessarily need tack-sharp shots for what I do, but, well, I was envious of others' images and wanted those results for myself.

Enter the Canon 60D. While it is a huge step up from the Rebel, it is still not considered a true professional camera. That's OK--pro cameras are big and heavy, and really, really expensive. We picked this one up at Costco--I love Costco--as a kit that came with an 18mm to 200mm lens. As soon as it was home I popped the lens on and ran outside to try it out.

The first thing that I noticed was the addition of a spot meter, something the Rebels do not have. Your meter determines your exposure, and when you are shooting something like a small bird in a tree, how the camera meters the subject is vital. Even with center-weighted metering, too much of the sky is metered and your subject (here some pine cones) will be under-exposed.

(None of the following images have been adjusted except for cropping and sharpening, which I do with all my images. No color/brightness/contrast adjustments were made.)

Center-weighted metering reads too much light from the sky, causing the subject to be underexposed.

My film cameras had spot metering, and I didn't realize how much I missed it until now. What a difference!

Spot metering uses only the very center to take a reading, exposing only for the subject.

I continued around the yard, shooting in different lighting conditions and different subjects. I left the camera on fully automatic and let it do all the work--determine ISO speed, shutter speed, f-stop, even auto-focus, which I never do with my Rebel. I wanted to see what the camera was going to give me without me fiddling with any settings.

Daddy longlegs on black-eyed Susan

 
We have a new brood of chickens who were out and about, so I used them as test subjects.

Pretty little silver-laced Wyandotte pullet.

So the second thing I noticed about this camera is how accurate the exposure is. Colors are very true, as is the light. I can see that for the most part I will be able to just let the camera do its thing, and not have to second guess every change in light. What joy! You learn to live with the pain until it's gone, and then you utter a long sigh of relief.

Red Star pullet. Generally a cross between a Barred Rock hen and a Rhode Island Red rooster.

I walked around the property, finally ending up at the huge pokeweed growing at the bottom of a hill. No trouble with focusing, metering, or color. Yay!

Pokeweed, one of my favorite plants. Just gorgeous!

The third thing I noticed about this camera is that you can shoot up to ISO 6400. ISO is the equivelant of film speed. The lower the number (say ISO 100) the slower the "film", but the smaller/tighter the grain. Slow ISO means that you need a slow shutter speed to make a proper exposure. The grain is very small so each grain collects very little light. It's great for landscapes and anything that will be blown up really big because it won't be grainy.

The higher the ISO the lower the lighting conditions you can shoot in. Also, it allows for a faster shutter speed so that motion can be stopped (including, of course, photographer motion from hand-holding a long lens). The trade-off is that the image will be grainier. The higher the ISO, the more light-sensitive each grain must be, so they get bigger the higher the number gets.

Shooting at 1600 with the Rebel usually resulted in pretty poor image quality. What I had heard about the 60D was that the grain structure was much better, resulting in better quality images at higher ISO's. So this morning I got out my 300mm and the 1.4x extender to do a little bird photography in the early morning light.

Goldfinch, shot at ISO 5000. At least as good as the Rebel at 1600.

Chickadees make willing subjects, unafraid of me sitting inside the doorwall, the camera clicking away.

ISO 1600 at 1/1000 of a second. Depth of field is short, head is out of focus, but nice tight grain!

Close cropping starts to expose some abberations in color and grain at ISO 1600--notice the sunflower seed. However, the change from the bright white cheek to the dark background is pretty clean, just a tiny bit of ghosting. Since I am using images to draw from this is really an non-issue, just noting what this camera can handle.

A young male ruby-throated hummingbird stopped by for a visit. This is cropped pretty close too, and you can see some noise in the background at ISO 1600 as the grain becomes apparent. This image starts to look pretty soft but again, I need detail and properly exposed images to work from, not necessarily tack sharp images. 

Morning light colors this hummer pink.

Being able to get good quality, properly exposed shots at a high ISO is gong to make a big difference for me and what I can reasonably expect to shoot--thinking primarily birds in motion, being able to hand-hold the camera, shooting in low-light conditions and capturing back-lit subjects. I'm really excited to get out and shoot some more!

*Note: I have to make a correction to a statement I made in this blog, that the Rebel T1i doesn't have spot metering. I was just looking over the settings on the Rebel and see that it does indeed have spot metering. How I never knew this is beyond me--I guess that's why you should always read the manual. What's frustrating is that I would swear I looked for it and didn't find it, but it's right there in the menu. Very silly, really. Can't imagine how many shots I missed because I had to mess with the exposure, or had it set wrong. Ah well, live and learn!

Artwork--A Two-fer!

I have been busting my tail to get some new artwork done since we returned from Pictured Rocks. I have 10 shows in the next nine weeks, and a few of them do not allow framed prints to be hung in your booth. Once again I did not get nearly enough work done over the winter, and I've sold four originals in three shows so far this year. At that pace I will be in trouble by August, so I have been spending a lot of time in the studio, to the detriment of all sorts of other things.

First up is this pretty little American goldfinch I finished today. I've done a couple of them over the years, the last one about four years ago, a male perched on an purple coneflower. I really like the composition of this image but had a hell of a time figuring out the wing feathers from this angle. They are close but probably not exactly right. Thank goodness for artistic license....

"All That Glitters"

Next we have another American, this time the American robin. This is one of those birds that you see everywhere. It is so ubiquitous that I barely notice them at all anymore, except at 5:30 in the morning when they start singing to raise the dead outside the bedroom window. I got shots of this stately female while I was at a show last year in Madison Wisconsin. Let's just say the show was, well, slow, so I wandered off with my camera and left Lisa at my booth. The robin was working her way across the lawn of the park. I love this pose, so typical for this bird, always with its beak in the air, very aristocratic. I figured it was about time to draw Michigan's state bird!

"The Early Bird"

Both pieces are 10 x 8, framed to 14 x 11, and, for now, are $425 each.

First Snow

We had our first snow of the season Tuesday night.  The day started with copious amounts of rain, more than two inches in some places, and it was a miserable day with temps in the mid 30's.  By evening the temperatures dipped towards freezing and the rain changed to snow.  With everything still wet from the rain the world was coated in white by Wednesday morning.

The birds, who had been hitting the feeders pretty hard all day Tuesday, returned Wednesday morning for a feast.  I am always surprised to see my feathered friends after such a nasty night.  I fear they will get frozen to a branch or encased in ice.  But they know how to take care of themselves, and after the snow they come in droves.

Female Northern Cardinal

We have a crab apple tree off the balcony and many birds perch there while waiting their turns at the feeders. It's a wonderful opportunity to watch them and get some pics.

Chipping Sparrow and House Finch

Who can resist the beautiful red bird on a branch with tiny red apples?

Male Northern Cardinal

The Goldfinches are still gorgeous, even in their drab winter plumage. This one perched on a dogwood out the side window.

Male Goldfinch

No winter morning in the north would be complete without the jays.  I know many people don't like these birds but I think they are beautiful and I admire their intelligence.

Blue Jay

Oh, how I do love winter!

Indigo Bunting

Now that I'm done with the Tawas Point Birding Festival I can get back to real-time blogging. Lisa, Lori and I paid a visit last week to the Brighton Rec Area to pull garlic mustard. The DNR's Stewardship program has workdays on the weekends where a group will get together, lead by the program's coordinator Laurel Malvitz, and do all sorts of habitat restoration. But thanks to our schedule (arts shows and markets on the weekends) we are rarely able to make it to these. So we try to get out and do some work mid-week.

We were working an area around a prairie that the state has been working hard to restore. Here we are working our way up the slope of a ravine.


Lisa with a handful of garlic mustard.




Where the trail cuts through the prairie we paused and listened and watched. I was curious to see who was hanging around this open space. To my delight we found not one but three male Indigo Buntings, rotating from tree to shrub to snag, singing and singing.

I decided to return the following morning, and I set my stool under a big maple tree across the trail from a snag that seemed to be a favorite perching point so I could get some pics of this gorgeous bird. We see them at our place only once a year, I guess as they're passing through, so I was thrilled with the opportunity to get to spend more time with them.

They did not disappoint!






This Goldfinch wanted in on the action too!






I sat for about 45 minutes, watching and listening, surprisingly unbothered by mosquitoes. What a treat!

Winter Birds Part 1

As many people who live in northern climates do, I have a particularly soft spot for those birds who tough out our winters with us. While the weather here in Southeast Michigan is not particularly brutal, we do occasionally get very cold, very snowy winters (like the last two). Every morning after a night of sub-zero temperatures and biting winds I am amazed to see any birds at all, much less the crowds that amass on our feeders. While the weather is mild still, they are busy at the feeders all day, putting on fat stores that will help them through the winter.

The tufted titmouse,



black-capped chickadee,

and white breasted nuthatch are three of the most common birds of our winter world. None of these birds has bills strong enough to crack open a sunflower seed, so each will fly up, take a seed, and fly off to a nearby tree. The chickadee and titmouse will hold the seed between their feet and hammer at it until the shell is cracked. The nuthatch, with its long torso, is designed for clinging to a tree rather than perching on a branch, and seems unable to grasp a seed with its feet. This bird will fly to a nearby tree, cram the seed in a crevice, and then hammer at it with its bill to get at the meats.

The northern cardinal,

and the goldfinch have strong bills for cracking seeds, and will sit contentedly at a feeder devouring seed after seed.

The downy woodpecker (this one's a female) usually sticks to the suet, but will occasionally take sunflower seeds, and has to go about cracking them open like the nuthatch.




I think mourning doves are beautiful birds, but I'm happy not to have as many as we did in Ann Arbor. Their light eye ring really makes their eyes stand out, and their lids are light colored too, so you can see when they blink. Makes them seem less reptilian or something. I miss their cooing when breeding season is over.

The dark-eyed junco is not a year-round resident here. They breed farther north, and come down just to spend the winter. I guess this is like their Florida. We saw the first one this year on October 23--last year the first sighting was on October 22. Either we weren't paying attention or they were running late this year!

Now, I know this isn't a bird, but she's too cute not to include, and is certainly a regular at the feeders year-round. As long as they don't chew their way into my studio (from where all these photos were taken) then they are welcome at the feeders.



Missing from this group are the blue jay, red-bellied woodpecker and a sparrow or two. I'll be curious to see if the hairy woodpeckers stick around for the winter--I saw one the other day, but have never seen one in the dead of winter. We also get eastern bluebirds and cedar waxwings, who will come in mid-January to our crab apple tree out front--they tend to hang out at our neighbor's house, who is back in the woods.

Also absent are the winter birds who have yet to arrive, those who breed and nest to the north. Those include the red-breasted nuthatch, common redpoll and pine siskin. This will be our fourth winter here, and it's taken awhile for some of these part-time birds to find us. The redpolls first came two years ago, the siskins last year. I'm excited to see who may show up this winter.