Sunday 22 August 2010

Visitors to the Bird Table

As it kept raining yesterday I set up the 350D on a tripod in the kitchen and trained it on my bird table. Then I connected the intervalometer and left it to take a photo about once every 16 seconds. The bird table has wire mesh on all sides to keep out the larger birds but the front can be lowered to allow cleaning and topping up the seed. So the camera could get a clear view I left the front section down. For the first hour or more there was nothing caught on camera but towards late afternoon several species paid a visit.

One of the most frequent visitors was the Coal Tit racing in to grab black sunflower seeds and flying off with them to build up its winter stash.

Coal Tit 1

Another frequent visitor was a Great Tit which would collect a sunflower heart to take to a nearby branch to eat.

Great Tit 4

Of course a list of regulars here wouldn't be complete without a Starling

Starling 2

or a visit from some House Sparrows.

Sparrows 1

Recently there has been at least one juvenile Magpie hanging about making an awful din. This one had to visit the table several times before it found the way in.

Magpie 2

Finally managing to get some seed after several attempts to find the entrance.

Magpie 4

I don't think I would have ever got the Magpie photos if I had been in the kitchen as they are very easily scared away.  Another day I can leave the camera to concentrate on one of the seed feeders or the peanut feeder. The borders on the photos were once again added using the plugin Border Mania.

8 comments:

  1. John I have always yearned for one. Thanks for the info. No they have no leads in stock for the E-3. Olympus charge £80.00 for a cable release. I would also like a heat sensitive release, you will know all about those as well.
    Grand images and it keeps you fit cleaning windows or have you built a machine for that.

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  2. Hello Adrian. The seller does say he can order any which are out of stock. May be worth asking him how long it would take.

    I bought third party releases for my Canon gear - much, much cheaper than Canon demand. Two possibilities from the net for the E-3:

    cable release:

    http://www.premier-ink.co.uk/photographic/shutter-releases/hahnel-hro280-cable-remote-shutter-release-olympus-p-1779.html

    wireless release:

    http://www.ultimatenaturegear.co.uk/Camera_Accessories/Remote_Shutters/Olympus/Olympus-E3/Olympus-E3-Wireless-Remote___1650.htm

    I've not used these companies myself.

    I sometimes use a wireless release with the 50D and find it very useful to have the camera relatively close to something and be able to operate it from a distance, in fact to be able to move about and still fire the camera.

    So far not spotted a heat sensitive release, which would be ideal.

    Bobby keeps falling off the draining board when I tell him to lick the window clean lol.

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  3. Hello John, wow great info there. Not something I have ever experimented with. Nice shots of the birds :-)

    A great idea of yours re leaving the front down too. You are getting much deeper into the tech stuff than I have had time to try out. I can see quite easily how once you start you just keep pushing further. Sounds like you enjoy it :-D

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  4. Thank you Shirl. I get bored if I'm not tinkering with something or other. Been at it for the past 50+ years with very variable results!

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  5. Got some great results from that set up John.
    I'm afraid the techy side of it all leaves me completely baffled though. lol

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  6. So much fun to see the magpie almost filling the space of the table feeder. The starling is my favorite photo today. The color of the border really brings out the subtleties of the colors edging the starling's wing feathers; very nicely done!

    cheers,
    wilma

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  7. Thanks Keith. I hope to catch more photos of the birds which vanish as soon as I go in the kitchen.

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  8. Thank you Wilma. I thought that border would make a change, difficult to pick a neutral colour for the background. Yes, the Magpie is quite a large bird, especially with the length of its tail.

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Thank you for visiting. Hope you enjoyed the pictures. Any comment, or correction to any information or identification I get wrong, is most welcome. John

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