Tag: House Sparrow

A Walk Around the Sulphur Lake…by Brad Marks

Hello again everyone! In a somewhat ironic state, our normal roles here at Intrigued have been inverted. Normally, I am the one having to be “given” care for whatever mess I’ve gotten myself into – noting ever grateful as it is the season for Thanks-“giving”. Today, however, it is my turn for “giving” back as Linda is recovering from her knee surgery. Trying to remember the last time I took care of Linda…hmm, likely when she had her heart surgery many, many moons ago. Truth be told, I am probably a better care receiver than “giver” owing to the amount of practice gleamed from unfortunate…ummm.. mishaps that have befallen me to this point – I also take direction better than her, but shhhhhhh, don’t tell her I said that! While I tend to the wounded, Brad is going to once again take the helm of the USS Intrigued and sail us Down Under for another adventure in Kiwiland. Keeping with our “Newvember” theme (technically a carryover from last month), Brad will be bringing you not one, not two, but THREE new lifers! You can really tell when performance reviews are coming due around here, although he knows my opinion of the bird he snuck in at the end. Enough Bri, let’s get sailing.

Take it away Brad…

Very often birds will give us a full photoshoot pose package.  They will stop to pose on the end of a twig in perfect lighting conditions.  Some will rotate to show both their left and right sides.  They will dip their heads to show us the color on top, and then give us a full view of the colors on their backs.  Many will even show us their belly feathers or under their tails to complete the package.  Then finally give us that face-on view that says, “We are done.  Go away!”

NOT!

Photoshoots rarely happen this way.  And today’s subject birds are no exceptions.  However, most of today’s subjects did give us at least a few photos before being distracted by food someplace else.

Jan and I were staying for a couple of days in Rotorua, New Zealand.  Our busy photo assignment had a small hole of time in the schedule one morning.  Since we were staying at a hotel on Sulphur Point, we took a walk along a trail through the Sulphur Flats on the shores of Lake Rotorua.  It’s really the Rotorua Caldera that has filled with water over time, but is still geologically active.  Meaning it can get rather stinky at times.

The trail took us as far as we could tolerate the sulphur fumes which were quite strong.  Thankfully, this morning, the wind mostly shifted to be from the south which kept most of the fumes blowing away from the trail and towards the lake itself.  The prior night the winds had done just the opposite and we woke to very strong sulphur smells inside the hotel.

Jan and I walked about 1 kilometer (or just under ¾ of a mile) anti-clockwise around the bottom of the lake, starting at about the 6:00 position if the lake were an analog clock face.  For those who only have digital clocks, go ask your parents or grandparents to show you an analog clock face. The first bird Jan and I spotted, about 50 meters (or yards) away on the sulfur flats were these black and white beauties.

A Walk Around the Sulphur Lake, New Zealand by Brad Marks

Quite the cuties! Hit the jump to read about the rest of Brad and Jan’s finds.

Continue reading A Walk Around the Sulphur Lake…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

The Allerton House

We are officially in bonus time ladies and gents.  Not bad seeing as how it is only the 20th – no whining about being down posts this month.  There’s more than one reason this month is special – I finally overcame my demons today and managed to knock out three loops during our weekly Sunday Springdale Run.  That’s right, 20 miles in the books on the nasty hillfest we torture ourselves about every weekend these days.  The third loop has been my nemesis for over a year now – every time before I end up begging for mercy at the end of the second loop regardless of how well I felt at the end of the first.  This time we held back a bit on the second loop too keep from tiring our legs out.  There is a theory that there was some help from the Girl Scouts but further testing is needed before we can definitely say we have found a running secret!  Note, I was so happy I checked this life list item off I enjoyed a Shamrock Shake – a rarity based on the calorie count that decadent dessert possesses – figured with over 2500 burned off  during the run I could spare a few to indulge.

20 miles also signifies something else – I’m gonna need some time to rest the legs.  Not one to waste a perfectly good afternoon, figured it could be spent cranking out this bonus entry.  Now I’d like to introduce you to the House Sparrow.

House Sparrow Shot at Allerton Park

This happens to be one of the few Sparrows I can easily identify in the field.  The black laced necklace of the male in these shots is easy to spot and distinctive enough to ID.  At some point I’m going to distill all the key features of the various Sparrow members so my brother and I can quickly classify all the little brown jobbers that end up in the tin after any Midwest outing.

House Sparrow Shot at Allerton Park

Hit the jump to see and read more about this common North American bird.

Continue reading The Allerton House

Project Chekov: Sparrows, Swifts and Swallows

Today is one of those difficult days in the birding realm.  If you have spent any time with this blog you probably know by now that when it comes to Sparrows I generally throw in the towel.  There just isn’t enough differences discernible in the field to really come out confident on what you have in the tin.  There are also difficulties when it comes to the Swallows and Swifts so figured it was time to get them all out of the way.

Let’s start with the Sparrow.  Now, throughout this post please keep in mind that the identification can be freely debated and if you know specifics please share!  With that, this is a small brown and gray bird so we’ll tag it with Sparrow.

Admittedly, this on is a little darker hued that we see and it has some darker tones in the under feathering along the neck.  One cause may due to the fact that this shot (and the one below) were taken in a storm which may have deepened the colors from either the wetness or the clouds.

I do like the picture and why I tell everyone there is no reason to get down if their designated day to hit the field turns out dreary.  Sure, you’ll need to tap that ISO dial up a bit and probably even back off the shutter speed but you have one thing going for you.  The rain tends to slow down the birds and cause them to spend a little more time on their perches (under cover of leaves of course).  For the hyper birds this is a godsend when it comes to getting shots of them.  UPDATE: By the way, while doing  quick search for one of the pictures below I stumbled on the House Sparrow which does match the neck coloring – pretty darn close in my opinion so let’s go with that for now.

Here is another Sparrow likely taken in a similar setting.

If I had to take a guess, the reference books tend to point to a Chipping Sparrow with that rust cap and eye-line.  Small, brown, gray … it’s a Sparrow in my book – any finer classification is just icing on the cake.  Again, I do like how the composition came out on these two shots – the branches seem to push the viewer’s eyes right to the desired focus of attention – granted it is just Sparrow.

Hit the link to read more about this difficult to identify set of birds.

Continue reading Project Chekov: Sparrows, Swifts and Swallows