Bird Watching

While the boys were taking summer classes in the mornings, I would dedicate this part of the morning to spending time on my computer work. Our computer sits by one of our backyard windows and we have a Shepard's hook right outside the window, in the garden, with tubular bird feeders. One feeder has thistle and the other has sunflower seeds.

I began noticing gold finches coming to the feeder at various time during the day. Then one morning as I was working I saw a lovely purple finch. I thought that I would try to get photos of these birds with my Christmas camera. I had a pretty easy time getting the gold finch as I saw them quite often throughout the day and in different locations in the yard.


Once I had success with the gold finch, I then wanted to get the elusive purple finch. I began to notice that the purple finch showed up between 9:45 and 10:30 in the morning. I would see it flitter by out of the corner of my eye. First I tried quietly grabbing my camera from the sofa table, moving back to the window by the computer. By the time I would get to the window the bird would fly off. So then, I spent some time setting up my camera. I would get the lens setting the way I wanted it and would leave it sitting by the computer monitor.

The next two days once the purple finch arrived, I tried slowly drawing the blinds up with my camera in hand. Every time I got the blind up to the bird feeder level the bird would fly off. No photo!

The third and fourth days I drew up the blinds first thing in the morning, camera ready and sat down to work. No bird either day. So, on day five I left the blinds down, had my camera ready, and waited. It was an overcast day as it had rained earlier. This was perfect lighting for my bird photo. Soon a male and female bird lighted on the feeder. I slowly leaned into the window, camera one hand, and wedged the lens between the blinds with the other hand. The birds were still eating at the feeder. Yes! I put my eye to the viewer and my dog runs by the garden scaring off the birds. No photo, again.

Finally, success was mine. The birds returned the next day and I was ready. The dog was napping in the family room chair, camera on the desk, and blinds were down. I slowly and quietly got the lens between the blinds, peered into the viewer and began to snap photos. YEA!!! The lighting isn't the best and doesn't do the birds justice, but I got them. Here is the male.



Now, I have flitted off to another project as my paid computer work has predominately ended for the summer and my scanning project has taken a back seat to finishing Doug's photo album. So, I don't see the purple finches anymore. I still wonder about them and found it interesting that they came by our yard at the same time each day. Maybe I'll have another overcast morning and will wait by the window for my visitors to return for more photos.