Jellystone

We went to Yellowstone hoping to see bison babies. We did. We also saw 13 bears. I will be updating my actual website at some point, but for now here are the highlights.

Drop the mic

Every few years I have that "drop the mic" moment when it almost seems pointless to snap any more images. The one I remember the most is the owls on Honeymoon Island in 2008. The bluebirds gave me something similar today. I was hanging out on the patio to see if any more hummingbirds came by, and getting shots of opportunity with the bluebirds. Then this happened.

Spring marching in

I saw a hummingbird fly through the yard yesterday so I decided it was time to put the feeders out. I happened to have the 500mm sitting on the patio when this fellow came by. It's at the old crappy plastic feeder, which I have removed via Photoshop. I rarely change images with Photoshop in this manner, but in this case I'll make an exception.

I tried to fix the nicer glass feeder, which got the top broken off last year and subsequently leaked, by pouring latex paint into it last fall. Despite a winter of allowing the attempted seal to cure, it still leaks. I re-ordered the same one and I'll try to keep the wind or mowing crew from breaking it.

Bluebirds

To save wear and tear on my Canon 5D Mark III, which is almost 10 years old now, I'm using the 18-year-old 1D Mark II for my bluebird camera trap. This morning while setting the motion trigger with the 1D and 500mm monster lens, the female bluebird was buzzing around. I took control and got a few manually-triggered shots. The previous day, I got some motion-triggered images with the 1D and 70-200 zoom at 70mm. Most of these images have been added to my web site.

The 1D was a great camera in its day, but it is only 8.2 megapixels. It is hard to keep the sensor clean and I have to Photoshop out spots most of the time. The battery doesn't last all day, so today I have the AC adapter plugged in. But with a little effort, the 1D is once again producing passable images after sitting idle from 2012 until last year.

For sure, the images are miles ahead of anything out of my trailcams, even the two Reconyx.