H.J. Ruiz – Avian101 – Page 672 – "My Backyard Visitors" – All about birds

Panoramic View of Birds

Male House Finch — Click on image to see enlargement —

Tags: birds, House Finch, nature, photography, photos of birds

Memory Lane

APRIL 2009

Northern Mockingbird — April 2009

Tags: birds, Memory Lane, nature, Northern Mockingbird, photography, photos of birds

My Local Friends – II

Today I have to tell you a bit about another bunch of dear birds that have been my all year regulars since I moved to my house in Georgia.

I’m referring to the Northern Cardinals. They are so good looking birds, both, male and female. I’m so used to see them daily that sometimes is still dark outside at dawn and looking out the window to the deck and I can see one or two cardinals waiting for me to refill the feeders. Of course if they see me though the window somehow a bunch more will appear!

Here’s some more information about them for the readers that might be unfamiliar with these birds.

The Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) is a North American bird in the genus Cardinalis. It can be found in southern Canada, through the eastern United States from Maine to Texas and south through Mexico. It is found in woodlands, gardens, shrublands, and swamps.

The northern cardinal is a mid-sized songbird with a body length of 8.3 in. It has a distinctive crest on the head and a mask on the face which is black in the male and gray in the female. The male is a vibrant red, while the female is a dull red-brown shade. The northern cardinal is mainly granivorous, but also feeds on insects and fruit. The male behaves territorially, marking out his territory with song. During courtship, the male feeds seed to the female beak-to-beak. A clutch of three to four eggs is laid, and two to four clutches are produced each year.

Male

Female

Male

Female

Male

Female

Male

Text and photographs © HJ Ruiz – Avian101

Tags: birds, Interesting information, Northern Cardinal, photography, photos of birds

Q&A

In the past I’ve answered some questions to various readers about:

Why your photos have different color backgrounds?
Am I using using a certain software to create them?

To answer these types of questions is quite simple: No I do not use any trickery to create the toned background. The coloration is created depending of the natural plants behind the subject of the photo, in other words the background in my backyard are plants and trees. The color of the plants are in cue with the seasons.

Let’s keep in mind that I use mainly telephoto lenses and use the wide apertures only being the DOF very shallow (blurred) that by itself helps create a beautiful ‘bokeh’, at 500mm makes the most gorgeous colored backgrounds you can get.

For this post I’m featuring photos that show the different types of plants that now are showing in my backyard. That will give you an idea of what I mentioned before.