summer_jackel: (Default)
summer_jackel ([personal profile] summer_jackel) wrote2009-08-28 03:10 pm
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Hey, birders!

Want to play a round of 'identify that bird?'

The below lovely feathered thing landed near us on the second day of the trip as we were having lunch at the lower Graveyard Lake. I believe it to be a gyrfalcon, which species apparently does inhabit the high Sierras. Her flight pattern looked more like a falcon than an accipiter to me, she was about the right size, and though I wasn't able to get great pictures of her, they did sort of come out, and they look like a brown-phase gyrfalcon to me.

If it is, I will be very excited. It's a species that I love, and I have never seen either captive or in the wild. Whatever she was, she was a beautiful bird.

Other birds I spotted included a redtailed hawk, osprey, Clark's nutcracker, one little hummingbird at high elevation (calliope?) and a cute little yellowish thing that I've not had time to try to ID yet. But name for me this raptor, please.

And camera people, I am starting to get a tiny little bit less clueless and overwhelmed by my DSLR. What lenses do you like for shooting wild birds that aren't very close to you?

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[identity profile] pelzig.livejournal.com 2009-08-28 11:45 pm (UTC)(link)
I have a 75/300 zoom lens for my Canon 350D that has vibration compensation. I haven't tried shooting birds in nature (the pix of the Bronx Zoo on my Facebook page were able to be done close-up) with it but I should and see what the results are.