Backyard Birds
Spent a short time out in the field looking for a Marsh wren to round out my threesome for the day….Carolina, House, and Marsh all in the same day. I had the first two, but the third is one which while I know where to go to hear them, spotting and photographing them is a whole different story. And so, I headed back to our home and was greeted by a flurry of bird activity as soon as I pulled into the driveway. I grabbed a couple of shots of the birds on the wires…House sparrow and Northern mockingbird… and decided to go back onto our backyard deck and simply let the birds come to me. Now in the interest of transparency, there is a reason we have so many birds hanging around. We have feeders. In the winter, I have no less than a dozen around the property, but for the summer, we only keep a few filled up. Admittedly, this is more for our enjoyment than it is for the benefit of the birds. With the rain and warm weather we’ve had, there is plenty of seeds, worms, little insects, and whatever else they crave to keep the birds satiated. But since the opportunity presented itself , I decided that this would be a short post of what birds we could see and photograph in our own backyard in a couple of hours.
Today’s post, then, is a short 1 1/2 minute slide show of images I captured of the birds at our deck, at the feeders, and in the trees all in this one afternoon. In all, we had 17 species, 12 of which were easily photographed. I made no attempt to try to isolate the birds in a totally naturally environment so you will see plenty of evidence of the feeders in these shots. This was simply an exercise to see how many I could photograph in a short period of time while simply sitting on my back deck. Hope you enjoy the view as much as I did.
Tech Tip - The slide show seen here was created using an amazingly powerful video editor call DaVinci Resolve. This software is used by professional filmmakers and delivers exceptional quality. One of the things that makes this software so amazing is that it is absolutely FREE! There is a paid version, but that edition goes way beyond what any of us novices could ever need or want. There is admittedly a rather steep learning curve, but with the help of on-line YouTube tutorials, the basics can be mastered in a short period of time. If you’re interested in creating your own videos, then DaVinci Resolve is definitely worth a look. Remember, you do not need to download a free trail version….it’s already free for as long as you choose to use it. It’s been my go-to video/slide show creation software for a couple of years now and I am still amazed at how good it is. They also include periodic upgrades….again all free!
