shirls gardenwatch: Wordless Wednesday: The stage is set

Wednesday, 4 December 2013

Wordless Wednesday: The stage is set

A warm welcome please for our acrobatic cast members...

The Blue Tit Parus caeruleus

The Great Tit Parus major

The Coal Tit Parus ater

This post was published by Shirley for shirls gardenwatch in December 2013.

8 comments:

Lisa at Greenbow said...: The little darlings of the garden.; 5 December 2013 at 00:31:00 GMT
Sue Garrett said...: Did you lay it wait or have the camera set to fore automatically?; 5 December 2013 at 08:59:00 GMT
Angie said...: Great shots Shirley - they certainly have some amazing acrobatic antics. I could watch them all day. I've never successfully taken a shot of a coal tit. Too quick for me!; 5 December 2013 at 17:28:00 GMT
Midmarsh John said...: Always a pleasure to watch the members of the tit family. Nicely framed shots.; 6 December 2013 at 08:49:00 GMT
Anna said...: Love this family of birds Shirl - your photos have captured them beautifully. What about the long tailed - do they come calling?; 6 December 2013 at 21:11:00 GMT
SeagullSuzie said...: How exciting...I wonder what'll be next; 8 December 2013 at 20:38:00 GMT
Juliet said...: Hi Shirl,

Sorry I haven't had time to keep up with your blog over the last few months - moving house is sooo time-consuming. I just dropped in to wish you a Merry Christmas and have a quick catch-up looking at some of your lovely pictures.; 24 December 2013 at 23:43:00 GMT
Shirley said...: Hello everyone, thanks for all your comments. Sorry, I didn’t realise I hadn’t got back to you all :-)

Lisa, they really are :-D

Sue, ah… cheating perhaps here? I set up my video camera indoors on a tripod and captured a few videos clips. From there, a bit time consuming, I ran them through video in my editing program and painstakingly grabbing individual frames so I could get a similar pose. My main idea here was to show colouring and the size differences between these birds. I hope to do this some more for other birds :-)

Angie, thanks, you can read how I captured them in my reply to Sue above – that’s one way to get a coal tit shot. I’ve been lucky to capture a few photos of this darting little bird – drinking from the running water trickle at my small pond had it staying long enough for photos. I do enjoy the challenge of getting photos and video of fast/shy birds visiting the garden :-)

John, it is indeed. This is a new bird table that I instantly saw as a stage set to capture images of birds for comparison photos. As you know, the low light at this time of year make for dark and grainy images. I though this bright colour of a bird table would lift the light. I must get my tripod up again soon – these images were video grabs as I explain to Sue above :-)

Anna, me too. Thanks, see my reply to Sue for how I got these images. Ah yes, we do get the long-tailed but being quick enough to get video of them is a whole different matter. I get photos sometime but usually on dull days or early in the morning when the light is low. In my garden, the long-tailed is usually a winter visitor when the temps are low. Some years they just past though in a group, other years they will pop in and out for a few visits over a few days – then they are gone again. I’ve been caught completely without a camera too when out in the garden and I hear their chatters as they fly above me to the feeders – a great experience to be so close though :-D

Suzie, it was fun to see. Apologies for not following this up at the time – we will call it technical difficulties for the moment :-)

Juliet, gosh, I know how it goes, believe me. No worries at all. I love to catch up with bloggers I’ve known a long time – it’s like meeting up with old friends :-D Sorry, I didn’t get round to wishing everyone a Merry Christmas this year. Wishing you a good New Year now :-D; 16 January 2014 at 10:14:00 GMT

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