Month: January 2025

A Say’s Phoebe lifts its wings to take off from its perch. The Say’s Phoebe is a flycatcher and, like the Vermilion Flycatcher, lifts off from its perch to catch flies and other small insects. And, like the Vermilion Flycatcher, the Say’s Phoebe seemed to be as predictable in its habits. We could always find it near a particular perch that was in great light and had great backgrounds. It would lift up, catch a few flies or other insects then settle back down to the same perch. The Riparian Preserve at Water Ranch in Gilbert, AZ is a great place to visit and photograph all kinds of birds.

It seems as if every trip I go on, one species, whether it is feathered or furred, seems to dominate my focus for an entire trip. This past December, at the Riparian Preserve at Water Ranch in Gilbert, AZ, the Vermilion Flycatcher was the star of the trip for me. There were just a few individuals but their patterns were so predictable that we could count on where they’d be and when. That made it possible for us to photograph them both perched and in flight. The flight shots were especially fun to get. A very fast shutter speed to astop the action, in this case 1/8000 of a second, made it possible to freeze the feathers in position so you can count the feathers on the wings and tail.

Mourning Doves are ubiquitous birds in the US whose call is melancholy and mournful sounding, hence their common name. But, they are not mourning although according to the Audubon Society, the wistful call that evoked their name is most usually made by a male Mourning Dove searching for a mate so I guess you could say he is mourning being alone. Among the fun facts that the Audubon Society publishes about these birds is that it is one of North America’s most adaptable species that can live in harsh habitats like the Southwest desert, where I took this image. One of their adaptations is that they can drink brackish, salty water without getting dehydrated so the hot desert environment is one in which they can thrive.

On New Year’s Day, I had just stepped out onto my patio and set the Merlin App to record birds it heard. I saw that the app announced that “Your Bird of the Day” is an Anna’s Hummingbird. I don’t know if Merlin is affiliated with Google, that seems to know everything you’ve been thinking let alone searching for, but indeed I had already decided that my bird of the day was an Anna’s Hummingbird, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t say it out loud. I was on day 8 practicing with my new Nikon Z6III (a Christmas present to myself) and a feature called Pre-release Capture. This feature is not new and my Z8 and Z9 also have this ability. But because the feature records only JPEG images and not RAW images, I was reluctant to use it until now. My reluctance turned into “I must have this” after seeing the results Moose was getting. Capturing in-focus images that show the bird with various wing positions as it takes off can be a challenge. It requires a high shutter speed to freeze the action and in order to get the necessary high shutter speed, it also usually needs a high ISO. The Z6III handles high ISO on a jpeg image without the inherent noise that can be so objectionable. My other cameras don’t do it as well. The magic of this feature is that the camera records up to a full second of images BEFORE you press the shutter release. The delay between seeing the action and taking action to press the shutter release is enough to miss the action. That’s the beauty of Pre-release Capture… you have images you otherwise would have missed and hopefully, those are the images for which you pressed the shutter release. And, because it is a JPEG, the image is finished, straight out of the camera. No need for post processing.

This image is of one of the three male Anna’s Hummingbirds that have been squabbling over the feeders in my yard. It is the first successful take-off shot I captured yesterday. I’m thinking this feature will help me get those elusive hummingbird flight images with all sorts of interesting flight positions. Stay tuned. This is a work in progress.

This Anna’s Hummingbird and I wish you a happy new year!

Today’s post is the start of my fifteenth year publishing In Focus Daily. Through yesterday, since I started posting regularly on January 1, 2011, I have created 4,596 posts and shared 8,283 images or videos in those posts. When I started doing this, many of my posts included multiple photographs, something I do only occasionally now.

In Focus Daily has become an integral part of my life. I love writing it, I love taking photographs for it, and I love sharing my photographs. Almost every day that I shoot (and I try to shoot every day) I create images that I want to share. Over the past several years, my focus has been on wildlife and in particular birds, and although I do other kinds of photography, my passion is bird photography, all kinds of birds. So, watch this space. There will definitely be more birds but who knows what else might appear here? Stay tuned.