As promised, it is time to pop another offering from Brad’s growing queue. He has been working overtime to bring you a number of new adventures, many of which we will be releasing during my fast approaching migration trip. To wet your whistle, here is an adventure which happens to be closer to home. Note, I thought monopods were just for whacking faster runners when wildlife decides to make a S’more out of photographers. Who knew there was another purpose ha.
Take it away Brad…
Usually, these posts include some sort of travel or exotic location where there just happens to be a bird or three worth photographing. Brian heads to a bird sanctuary near the border in Texas. Jan and I have normally just returned from a fantastic vacation location. This time was a little bit different.
During our last trip to Colorado, I noticed my monopod (an aluminum Manfrotto 680B from the mid 2000’s) was slipping. It was having trouble supporting the weight of my Nikon 200-500 plus the D300 with battery grip. The middle section would slide down 4-5 inches, followed closely by the top section sliding 1-2 inches. I tried to tighten the joints with the plastic tool included with the monopod; no luck. When we arrived home, I discovered that parts are no longer available for this particular model. I also found several people on-line that had simply tightened the joints beyond what may be prudent. While that was not something I wanted to do, I wondered if the bolts had loosened because of usage. I grabbed my favorite metric socket set and loosened all the joints to look for debris. Finding none, I slowly tightened the bolts on the locking levers, about 1/16 of a turn each time. Try the joint. Adjust as necessary. Repeat. At some point I hit the magic friction point because the monopod stopped sliding with the lens/camera combo mounted on top. And it didn’t feel like I was going to snap off the locking levers. Now I had to verify the results.
Hit the jump to see the results of Brad’s verification efforts!
What better way to do that than to go take a bunch of photos! Keep in mind this is mid-November in central Illinois. However, the temps for the day had reached well into the upper 60’s. And birds-a-plenty were flocking to the feeders in our backyard. Guess where I ended up? You guessed it . . . in the backyard. Before the auditors at Intrigued throw the yellow flag about violating Rule 8 (read the rules here), all others rules were followed.
Our backyard is partially wooded, as you may have seen in the GHiaT story. Having feeders in the yard provides a cornucopia of feathered friends to watch. Knowing how skittish (I can hear them tweeting, “We’re all full of fear so let’s get out of here.”) these little gluttons can be, I went around the far side of the house to the back yard. When I first came around the corner of the house, they all scattered as expected. But after years of watching them from inside, I knew they’d come swarming back to the feeders within a minute or two if I stood very still. This time was no different. Though having said this, I’ve had a red-breasted nuthatch land on a feeder I was still carrying to the feeder poles (may have erroneously reported this as a mountain chickadee in a comment eons ago).
I wanted to see how close I could get without scaring them all away. I slowly moved forward a step at a time until they noticed me. Then I backed off a step or two until they ignored me. I wanted to be close enough to fill the viewfinder and minimize cropping later. But I did not want to be so close that my presence influenced them. Ironically, I was having so much fun watching them, I forgot to start taking photos.
I’m going to feature them in the order they appeared at the feeders (mostly). All of these birds were present the entire time. But with the feeding frenzy I decided to focus (pun intended) on one bird at a time and see what happened. All of these photos were taken within a 15-minute span in my backyard. No travel required. (Maybe I should talk to Intrigued Corporate about a funded trip, you know, like Rule 19 states).
I caught this one mid-snack. This American goldfinch was out with her friend, who at first, I thought was a juvenile finch. After closer review, I noticed that the yellow coloring was on the tips of the feathers, not the head and shoulders like the other one.
Several visits to websites to identify this bird provided no help. None showed any goldfinches with this coloring. This bird has yellow on its wing edges and tail, but none on its head or shoulders. I queried my favorite search engine and literally asked “what birds hang around goldfinches?”. This photo (well one nearly identical to it) popped up as the most popular response.
It’s a Pine Siskin. They are known compatriots of goldfinches. They like to hang around goldfinches and pine trees. My first thought after reading that was that I only have one or two junipers in the yard. But then I looked at my neighbors and they have a whole row of mature pine trees. And guess where the siskins went to enjoy their treats? This one should be a gimme . . . they went straight to the pine trees.
The next pair are two I’ve had trouble keeping straight until Brian told me about the best way to tell them apart, aside from being on the same feeder at the same time.
The Hairy woodpecker is a bit larger and longer than the downy woodpecker, up to 50% longer. It’s very hard to get them to hold still to compare though. I wanted to tape a ruler to the feeders so I could measure them, but then I remembered to just count the holes in the feeder. Hairy woodpeckers also have a much longer bill which is as long as the bird’s whole head. Size matters.
Downys have a “dainty” bill in comparison, only about 1/3 as long as the bird’s head. So how do I tell them apart at a distance and without gluing rulers everywhere in my yard? Hairy woodpeckers are about the size of an American robin. Downys are about the size of a house sparrow. Sometimes the red patch on the hairy is split in two, but not all the time. The red patch on a downy is all one piece. This red patch trick doesn’t work at all with the female versions of either bird; no red patches. Both male and female (of both birds) have the striking patterns of white spots on black wings.
I seemed to catch this one’s attention because it kept looking towards the shutter click sound.
Next is one of my favorite backyard birds. They are small but mighty. They have a very distinct set of calls. My daughter learned their three-toned song which is often heard in the spring time (when love is in the air).
These black-caps are in our yard all year round. A few years ago, we put out a heated bird bath during the winter. These little guys converge on the open water and are quite entertaining to watch. They take turns bathing even during the winter, often with their friends sitting on the rim of the bird bath. We have to change the water frequently. Partly because they splash the water all over, and partly because of the craptastic stuff they leave behind in the water.
Out of the corner of my eye I kept seeing a light brown streak leave the feeders and head to our maple tree.
This was an exercise in selective focus. Of the 40 or so shots I took, only a few were NOT focused on the twigs. I’m shooting here at 500mm. Even on a monopod any little movement invites the camera to focus on what it thinks is most important in the scene, which was usually NOT the bird. (ID pending a bit later in the story)
A darker grey bird was bobbing around at the base of the feeders. We see them walking patterns on the deck (when there’s no snow on it) so I was not surprised to see similar behavior under the feeders.
This Dark-eyed Junco seems to be asking “You lookin’ at me? Hey! Are you lookin’ at me?!” His much lighter grey friend wasn’t far off.
This Tufted Titmouse was a bit skittish (Run away!). On the feeders and around the bird bath they rarely hold still long enough to see the dark patch on their foreheads.
For this next bird I had to use Intrigued’s AID (Avian Identification Department). At first, I thought it was a female house finch, but the breast wasn’t speckled enough. And there was the lighter colored stripe above its eyes which made me think it was a house sparrow. But even counting for the extra sunlight, it wasn’t quite brown enough. The AID team said it was a female (guessed that part) house sparrow. That’s what I’m going with.
What caught me was not the coloring, but the clarity of her eye catching the sunlight. She was definitely keeping her eye on me.
During the 15 (or maybe 20) minutes I was watching and taking photos, I kept seeing this blur fly into the feeder, grab a snack, and then fly back out. I realized it was a black-capped chickadee (one of my favorites because of their vocalizations and antics). One Black-cap was working in and out of the feeder before I picked up on the pattern. I have plenty of empty shots, or shots with a black/white/grey blur. I must have caught its attention with a reflection off the lens. This time it hopped through the cage and stopped for an extra second. My camera was quick enough to catch it with the sunflower seed in its bill.
The only “regulars” I was unable to capture, because neither made an appearance, were the Red-Bellied woodpecker, the house finch and the Northern cardinal. We do get the odd norther flicker at the feeders but weren’t graced with any today. At this point I figured I had tested the monopod “repair” thoroughly enough. Because I know you are curious, the monopod joints did not slide at all. It made it through all 900+ photos holding up my 8 lb. camera assembly without slipping in the slightest.
If you want to see more bird photos from my feeders, visit here. If you want to see more birds than just from my backyard, please visit here.
Thank you for reading.
Credits:
Thanks again to Jan and Allyson for proofreading and editing.
Wildlife Intrigued 
Wonderful series of cute birds, Brad. You’re monopod mishaps are one of the reasons I never use a monopod and I rarely use a tripod. The driving force behind my getting the Bazooka, 400mm ƒ/4 DO lens is it only weighs 4 pounds compared to the 400mm ƒ/4 L lens that weighs 9 pounds and the 400mm ƒ/2.8 L lens that weighs a hefty 11 pounds. As long as it can focus on an object in the dark, I can shoot it handheld with the Bazooka, and get decent results.
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Hi Tim. Thanks for the compliments on the cute birds. We always enjoy watching them out of our windows. And I’ve always been drawn to big glass. I find I like the brighter images, extra stability from camera shake. Plus spectators tend to move out of the way when they see me coming with the attached monopod. It makes it a bit easier to carry in the field when I’m out for 5-6 hours at a time. I used to shoot sports, hundreds or thousands of images in a very short time where long-term stability was a factor. I agree on tripods for nature photography. I only use my tripod for astrophotography, or for multi-row panorama landscape shots. I don’t quite have the core strength Brian does with all of the ultra-races. Thanks for stopping by, always appreciate you taking time to leave a compliment.
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Sports photos are quick and a lot. I’ve done some, but not a lot. It used to be easy to carry the heavy stuff around. Not anymore.
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I’m trying to focus (pun intended) on things that don’t move quite as quickly now, except for birds.
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When I got my first mirrorless camera in 2009, I thought it was going to be so cool to have a compact camera and lenses for doing nature shots. Wrong. The focus was so slow, animals had to be asleep or dead for the tele lenses to focus on them before they moved. Now that Canon and Nikon have gone all mirrorless all the time, I’m still not convinced they can compete with mirrored cameras on quick focus. I’ve had four different high end mirrorless cameras, and the fast focus was a problem with all of them. My iPhone 13 Pro has replaced the mirrorless cameras.
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Someday I’ll go give the new Z-series from Nikon a try. Not having to move a mirror ought to give some benefit since the sensor is the key to the camera. However, I will need to have an optical viewfinder as I’m not a big fan of the rear LCD taking the place of a viewfinder. Plus I have a bunch of Nikon glass I do not want to have to replace. Maybe I’ll just stock up on gently used D300’s as everyone trades in DSLR’s for mirrorless. hahaha
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I dought I will get anymore mirrorless cameras. Used mirrored bodies should do for me for a long time.
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Ditto here. My three D300’s all have 150,000 clicks or more and still going strong.
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Both my bodies are faily new an low clicks. I wore out several other pro bodies through the years.
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I’m trying to wear them out evenly. That way I can replace all of them at once and not have two sets of batteries, battery grips, and memory cards to keep track of. And only one set of buttons to learn.
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Completely agree – as I commented to Tim, will let the market mature first.
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All I heard was bad things about those early mirrorless camera focusing capabilities which has undoubtedly tainted me to them. People keep telling me they are getting better…I’ve decided to wait and let the market decide. Grabbed an extra D850 for Linda last year to go along with her D810 and I have 2 D7000s and my new workhorse D7500 all should keep me set for some time while they continue to improve the mirrorless platforms – with Brad on the need for a viewfinder.
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Some ditch bank buddies bought a new Canon mirrorless system and complained that they got better results with their iPhones. I asked what the problem with the Canon was. They said it did not focus well. They didn’t ask my expert advice before plunking down almost $5K on the Canon system (they are doctors).
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Let’s hope they make better decisions when they have someone cracked open on the operating table!
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Let’s hope. I don’t know what their specialties are.
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Certainly not photography.
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Dollars and sense don’t always go hand-in-hand.
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Not t all.
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The Beast comes in around 8 lbs (200-400 f/4 VRII end to end) although I swear it gains weight as the day goes on.
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I’ll bet it starts feeling like 80 pounds after while. Way too heavy for me.
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At least – I tell everyone I have to spend every day in the gym just to survive my hobbies!
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Indeed.
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Let’s say it together . . . m-o-n-o-p-o-d.
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G y m w e i g h t s
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I very rarely use a tripod but it’s unfortunate that parts were not available for your Manfrotto. Your photos are very beautiful! ❤️😊
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Thanks very much John. It’s all in the subjects, I just try to catch them doing something cute. I figured lack of monopod parts is all included in the planned obsolescence that many manufacturers build-in. Nearly 20 years is a good long run for something that has seen over 250,000 images taken while balanced on top. The newer monopods are far superior to mine, but also far more expensive. Someday I’ll replace this one when I absolutely can’t tweak the joints and locks on this one.
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Wow man, 250,000 photos! The monopod earned its medal.
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Gorgeous photos, Brad! ❤ We used to see many birds in the empty wooded lots around us before Hurricane Ian took out most of the trees. Their numbers are greatly reduced. Maybe more of them will return as the woods recovers.
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Fingers crossed as the habitat starts to build back the birds will come back as well.
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Yes, I think nature will recover. I saw a pileated woodpecker on a palm tree yesterday from my window.
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I have one in the woods behind our house, but can never seem to catch it on “film”. Smartphone, yes. Camera, no.
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One passed through our woods as we came home today – luckily had one already in the tin this year so didn’t have to run all over the place trying to get a shot – I’ve been known to chase them down in my pajamas and bare feet – thankfully we live in the country and the distant neighbors we do have …well, they understand.
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I hear it all the time, but have only been able to catch it once a year, the exact same day two years in a row. Fingers crossed for this year.
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That is a very good start!
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Hi Cheryl. Sorry you lost most of the woods for the birds. I believe they will return as the trees do. And a little “bait” every now and then helps. We have five feeders with various seed combinations, two suet feeders (inverted and vertical) and two platform feeders. Plus whatever I spill refilling the rest of them. They get quite loud at times, but it’s a joyful noise. Thanks for your kind words on the photos.
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Thanks for the lovely array of your backyard birds, Brad. Impressive feeder variety, too. Great discovering the piney.
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Thanks Jet. We really enjoy watching their antics each day. Now if they would just hold still for more photos . . .
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I like just hanging out in my backyard photographing the birds that pass through or stick around. The antics they do as the jostle for a position on the feeders with one another or as they peek about to see who is watching. A nice collection.
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I always like to see the pecking order at the feeders – Goldfinch give way to Sparrows who clear for Cardinals that fear the bills on Downies but lack the size of Doves and then the Red-Bellied Woodpeckers enter the scene and they don’t take nuttin’ from anyone ha..
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Thank you Jerry. I wanted to have a representative sample from a very specific time period, all while testing my monopod “repair”. They vary somewhat through the day, but these always seem to be there. Thanks for dropping by.
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I have a monopod and I have used it twice, it is always in my jeep. I really need to use it more. I do carry a tri pod of some sort when I am out. I have 3 of them. Each one has a purpose, depending on the day. 🙂 Now if I can cut back on my camera bags, 🙂 but I don’t see that happening either. For the love of photography. Wonderful photos as well, I just love feeding birds. So exciting when that one new bird arrives and I have to get out the bird book 🙂
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Always fun when a new arrival shows up. Always like the looks from the locals at the feeders “Who are you?” and sometimes more like “What are you?”
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Sandra, I like the monopod to help steady long zoom shots. It does help with one direction of vibration (my shoulders shaking from holding 8-10 lbs. of camera and glass). Plus it seems to signal to others to get out of my way. I also have a spare battery and memory card attached to the monopod because I’m usually quite a ways from my car or camera bag or backpack.
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That is a good idea with the batteries and cards. I have gone out without a card in the camera to many times in the past. That is the first thing I look for now. 🙂
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I’ve had one of each fail in the past and missed photo ops. I even carry a spare camera body sometimes in the field. Just need a spare “me” after a long day.
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Luckily Ron and I (and Linda) share the same format of digital cards and batteries (well, just the batteries for Linda) so between us we are generally covered for unexpected equipment issues. If I could just convince him to also carry my camera I’d be all set!
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Nice photos and descriptions of your feeder birds, Brad. I have spent hours seated in a camp chair in the back yard with by binoculars and cameras looking at and photographing birds. Once they get used to my presence, they tolerate me in their space. This is a great way to learn about their appearance, behavior, and vocalizations.
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When they come to land on you is when you know you have arrived. I’ve had red-breasted nuthatches come land on feeders while I was still carrying them out for use.
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Let’s hope we will both experience the thrill of having them land on us. 😊
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