Tag: Black-Capped Chickadee

Chickadees Three…by Brad Marks

January is the time when the word Midwest becomes Latin for “find your mittens”. Lucky for us, some Mesopotamian genius in the 4th millennium solved this problem by strategically placing a sturdy stick between two cylindrical objects and soon after, “Snowbirds” was being etched on cave walls. Of course, now we have fancy glamping portable homes sitting on those rolling contraptions making this human migration far more pleasant. Pleasant being a relative word as our annual trek hasn’t exactly gone as planned. We go south to shed the layers of clothing, this year we are adding them thanks to a band of frigid air riding shotgun to Arizona – and now we might be greeted with the fluffy white crap looming near week’s end. Damn you Mr. Snow Miser (link here)! While we get this setback sorted out, Brad is going to jump in and bring us his first post of the new year. Let’s hope he found his mittens. 

Welcome to 2024 Brad, take it away…

As birders all know, the little birds are the hardest to catch successfully.  They blend into the trees.  Little birds tend to be spastic.  But they have some great calls and fantastic colors.  Little birds are also very rewarding if you are able to capture photographs of them sitting still for a millisecond, or 1/1000th of a second for those thinking in photographic terms. 

Todays’ three subjects have similar calls, but they are different enough to get your attention and all come from different parts of the country

Chickadees by Brad Marks

Black-capped Chickadees (Poecile atricapillus) have a three- or four-toned call with different notes.  The three-note call (Chick-a-dee) has the first note being the highest, the second a fifth lower and the third up a half-tone from the first (sounds like the last three notes from Close Encounters).  Their four-note call (Chick-a-dee-dee) is a series of two notes repeated, but about a half octave apart.  Most of the Black-caps near us use the three-note version, and this one from our back yard in central Illinois is no exception.  This is the first bird call our daughter Allyson learned to recognize and tried to imitate when she was about four years old.

Hit the jump to learn more about the Black-capped’s kinfolk.

Continue reading Chickadees Three…by Brad Marks

15 Minutes of Fame…by Brad Marks

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.

Birds from Brad Mark's backyard

Hit the jump to see the results of Brad’s verification efforts!

Continue reading 15 Minutes of Fame…by Brad Marks

Autumn is Coming, Get the Whiskey

Burrrr, someone let the fire go out around here. Not sure what is going on with the weather as it his heading down to 44F tonight. Granted we are a mere 3 days from the official end of summer, however, I think we deserve a longer one this year as our fun in the sun months were devoured by that bastard pandemic. It also doesn’t help that I’ve been trying to save all of my vacation days for an end of the year blowout in a desperate attempt to salvage what’s left of this year (need to start filling that photo queue for the upcoming 2025 blogging season hehehe). Lemons into lemonade, at least the threat of another heat stroke during the training runs is eliminated. In honor of the cooling temps, going to stick with the winter shoot from the last post.

Black-Capped Chickadee found on Brimfield Lot in March 2018

Hit the jump for a couple more shots of the Black-Capped enjoying winter.

Continue reading Autumn is Coming, Get the Whiskey