Setting Goals...

To say I have been excited with the return of our Song Birds would be an understatement and though we are only just getting started it has been a thrill to see the first birds trickle in. Here on the island of Newfoundland we have had Northerly winds hanging over us preventing many of our birds from arriving. I would estimate to say we are at least a week behind of their usual arrival scheduled.

With that said I have been able to get out and see a few of the returning birds. This year I decided to set myself a personal goal or challenge to capture images of a list of specific species. Last year was my first year at making a real attempt to photography our Song Birds which means there are many birds I have not captured what I consider decent images of. This list is made up of 16 different species which I will list at the end of this blog post.

To date I have successfully captured images of 6 out of the 16 species which I feel are good images. All of these have been captured within 20 mins drive from my home.

Starting things off here is an image of a Fox Sparrow which is one of our First Spring Arrivals.

Then a Song Sparrow hanging out on the edge of a wetland only a 2 min drive from my home.

The next bird is one I did not plan to get and is a very common bird here on the island. It is one that is often overlooked and to be honest a bird I wouldn’t normally head out to photograph (which I didn’t in this case either) but when this male hopped up on this perch from beneath the alders I had to capture it. I love the rust colors in the background that match the subject.

The following bird is one I have had on my list for a while and again is a common bird but one I have overlooked for way to long. This little guy is a Boreal Chickadee and I love the light filtering in on this shot.

The beautiful and spunky Red-Breasted Nuthatch. I really love the bokeh in this image as the light filtered through the trees.

One of the birds I was really looking forward to getting was the Yellow-rumped Warbler which is very common here on the island but one that just seemed to elude me in terms of a great image. I have other shoots from years past but nothing I truly liked (as mentioned I only really start taking Song Bird Photography seriously last year hence the lack of images of these birds). This particular male was very cooperative and provided some amazing looks.

and lastly an image I captured two days ago of a White-throated Sparrow which to me is one of the more beautiful sparrows we get on the island.

I am very happy with my success so far with our Song Birds; I look forward to hopefully seeing and photographing many more of the birds on my list in the coming weeks. Setting a goal like this adds a lot of excitement but also keeps me focused on each of the subjects individually. It is often very over whelming while out in the field hearing all the various calls and songs, so it is nice to have a particular subject in mind and keep focused on locating it during that outing.

I do feel I want to point out that I do NOT use setups. All these images where captured in the birds natural habitat. I do use callback in a very respectful and conservative way, spending only a short amount of time with each of the subjects.

Respect all that is Nature and I look forward to sharing more images of the Song Birds and keep you all update on my progress.

Oh and I almost forgot..Below is the full list of the Song Birds I am after this year (Keep in mind there are many more birds I will be photographing but these are top on my list)

American RedStart

Boreal Chickadee

Black Poll Warbler

Common Yellow Throat

Fox Sparrow

Golden Crowned Kinglet

Hermit Thrush

House Sparrow

Mourning Warbler

Palm Warbler

Red breasted Nuthatch

Ruby Crowned Kinglet

Song Sparrow

White-throated Sparrow

Wilson's Warbler

Yellow-rumped Warbler