I went out today knowing that it was a holiday, which I could have avoided, but that would be shirking my bloggy duty, and I figured I’d just get it over with. For today is Lock Teasers Day, which is not half as much fun as the other kind.
What, exactly, is Lock Teasers Day, you ask? Which is stupid, because it’s right there in the name: it’s the day for photo subjects that hold still just long enough to achieve focus lock upon, and absolutely no longer, so they’re next to impossible to get a photo of. You’ll hear the little beep, or see the viewfinder indication that focus is now bang-on, and zoom! they’re out of the viewfinder.
In my experience, most of the time it’s little birds that do this, and in the new location we now have a variety of new (to me, anyway) species that qualify. I produced several examples today, on at least three different species, such as this:
And this:
And even this, an avian nip-slip:
… which might make you remember Blurred Bird Day, and true enough, I got a few of those too. Eventually, however, I managed to defeat their dastardly efforts.
Naturally, the bird showed it was better at this holiday than I was, since all it showed was its underside, which is inadequate for identification on, like, ninety percent of bird species. Nonetheless, I’m thinking this is a ruby-crowned kinglet (Corthylio calendula,) which I’ve seen before but never managed any good photos of. They’re a classic species for the holiday: small, hyperactive, and tending to flit around in more crowded foliage. This is where full-time manual focus comes in handier, because auto-focus naturally wants to lock onto any branches in between the bird and camera instead of the bird itself – where is AI when you might have a proper use for it, huh? But full-time manual focus means you can leave autofocus switched on but tweak it to the proper subject when it unintelligently grabs the wrong point in the frame. This works better when you can hold still enough so that the autofocus says, Oh, that! Gotcha, and not, Wait, which? It keeps moving, as you accidentally track off of the bird, easy to do with high-magnification and a heavy lens, especially if you don’t have a handy-dandy long lens support grip.
There were at least three species of woodpecker that celebrated the holiday today, though I’ve previously gotten good pics of all of them, so ha ha to you bastards. There was this downy woodpecker (Dryobates pubescens):
… which, even though it peeked out later on, made sure it was in shade and only showed its head, barely:
The other two were a red-bellied woodpecker that seemed to be disputing territory with a squirrel, of all things, but only as long as I didn’t have the camera in hand, and a northern flicker that showed only its underside as well before darting off into dense pine canopy.
There were still two more birds that observed the holiday with the enthusiasm of a nursery school teacher with a hundredweight of colored construction paper – you can’t find that kind of dedication anymore. There was this one, behaving very much like a nuthatch but clearly not either of the two species to be found here:
… who didn’t know how to play the game well, because it was skipping up the trunk of this bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) in bright sunlight, not only visible through its movement and shadow, but at the same distance as the easy-to-focus-upon trunk. Amateur. But then again, it was only providing a dorsal view, which is only slightly better than the underside, and when it went around to display a profile, it disappeared around the trunk in deep shade, so maybe not that bad after all. Eventually, it did peek out for the barest chance at a pic.
That was enough for identification: this is a brown creeper (Certhia americana,) and the first time, to my knowledge, that I’ve spotted one. The day, by the way, struggled to reach temperatures above freezing, but the birds were out in force, perhaps knowing that within 24 hours a winter storm was predicted – time to top off the calories.
One more for the holiday.
Once again acting like a nuthatch, I thought I had another example of the species above, but examination of the photos showed a few distinctive differences, and I stumbled upon the ID almost by accident, since I wasn’t looking in that particular family.
This was as good as it got, but it seems to be enough to peg this as a female black-and-white warbler (Mniotilta varia, and no, that’s not a typo,) further buttressed with the details that it acts like a nuthatch, can show buff patches on sides, and is the first to arrive in the early parts of the year. Granted, this is very early, but we’re also within the breeding range of the species.
None of these birds, by the way, were making any sounds at all, so nothing to help confirm identification; the only thing making distinctive calls turned out to be a blue jay, making me realize how long it’s been since we had them visible where I’ve lived, and don’t ask me why that is. Here I was thinking, Boy, that sounds exotic, only for the bird to come into view, Oh, it’s just a freaking blue jay – have I ever heard their territorial calls before? I’ll have some shots of those eventually; where I grew up they were as common as muck, and thus I’m (still) too used to them, but they do have some pretty cool coloration.
There were a couple more bird captures this day, both new species, but they held still in plain sight and thus weren’t interested in the holiday – one of those (the birds I mean) will be along tomorrow.