What I did on Easter Sunday!

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an RV or an interest in RVing!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
See posts with no answers
Bob Buchanan

Bob Buchanan

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 3, 2005
Posts
3,038
Location
Philadelphia, PA
Images shot by the Colorado River on Easter Sunday. Lotsa Boats, Jet Skis, Birds -- and a Frontier Air liner leaving Laughlin.

All were done with my Canon 50D - and other than the wide scenary shots, all were using my Canon 100-400mm L lens. And most of those were at full zoom. The stand up skier was down by bridge while I was by the Riverside North Parking lot at the time. The air liner is at least several miles away.

TomS - I need help on the black bird, knowing it isn't a blackbird. I loved the bluish feathers. And his tail was very long and obviously used a lot in flight.

Best viewed: Either click the Slideshow button, OR, do a second single left Click on a thumnail for a black background - then use the Next Previous buttons. DO click F11 for full screen.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bob-bluecanon/sets/72157633138272877/
 
Looks like a Brewers Blackbird. But if the tail was really big, it might have been a Grackle.
 
You got three Great Tailed Grackles. They are an extremely common bird that loves to hang around parking lots or campgrounds. They are easy to tell from Brewers Blackbirds. The Grackle has a huge tail and never shuts up. Grackles also have a larger beak than the Blackbirds do. The two light brown Grackles are females and and the shiny black one is a male. The dove is a Eurasian Collared Dove. You can see his black collar around his neck which makes it easy to tell from the Mourning Dove, which is also very common.

I will be happy to ID any bird you post. But since you are getting into photographing birds you should get the Audubon Bird Field Guide for your phone. If you have Android here it is:

http://www.amazon.com/Audubon-Birds-Field-Guide-American/dp/B004R49A4W/ref=sr_1_1?s=mobile-apps&ie=UTF8&qid=1364901804&sr=1-1&keywords=audubon+birds
 
Tom, thanks for the recommendation on the Audubon bird guide for Android -- I just bought it, and there's a lot to like. But it can't seem to deal properly with orientation (portrait or landscape), having a large part of it in portrait mode (and it won't switch when you rotate), but a piece or two in landscape (apparently won't switch either). Otherwise, it's neat. I'm currently downloading all content (642 MB). BTW, Google Play has it on sale for $2.99 (still $4.99 on Amazon).

But initial impression is that it'll be a LOT handier than a book, plus you can listen to calls, as well as seeing multiple pictures. I'm mostly pleased.

Thanks,
 
Larry N. said:
Tom, thanks for the recommendation on the Audubon bird guide for Android -- I just bought it, and there's a lot to like. But it can't seem to deal properly with orientation (portrait or landscape), having a large part of it in portrait mode (and it won't switch when you rotate), but a piece or two in landscape (apparently won't switch either). Otherwise, it's neat. I'm currently downloading all content (642 MB). BTW, Google Play has it on sale for $2.99 (still $4.99 on Amazon).

But initial impression is that it'll be a LOT handier than a book, plus you can listen to calls, as well as seeing multiple pictures. I'm mostly pleased.
Click to expand...
I have to agree with everything you have said. I am really happy about how much better it is to find birds rather than a book. I have a huge selection of field guides and this app has pretty much made them worthless to me. I love the fact they have recordings of the voices of most birds and usually more than one call. You can look up birds just by color or many other features.
 
Great shots, Bob! Nice to see people enjoying themselves.

Next time, we'd like to see one of you on a jet ski! Gotta hand that camera over to someone else once in awhile!

Thanks for sharing.

-Roni
 
I really like Audobon field guide ap. I went crazy and bought the whole field guide set - birds, mammals, trees, and wild flowers. Most I ever spent on an ap but now I don't have to lug all those books on our hikes.
 
Wendy said:
I really like Audobon field guide ap. I went crazy and bought the whole field guide set - birds, mammals, trees, and wild flowers. Most I ever spent on an ap but now I don't have to lug all those books on our hikes.
Click to expand...

Per Tom's suggestion have downloaded the bird guide -- and will probably do the wild flowers as well.
 
SeilerBird said:
I will be happy to ID any bird you post. But since you are getting into photographing birds you should get the Audubon Bird Field Guide for your phone. If you have Android here it is:
Click to expand...

Thanks, Tom -- have downloaded the app. It will be very helpful.
 
You are welcome Bob. Don't be shy about asking us if you can't figure a bird out. Some of them are confusing even with the best field guides.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Members online

Total: 479 (members: 8, guests: 471)

Forum statistics

Threads
131,964
Posts
1,388,314
Members
137,718
Latest member
urnwholesaler
Back
Top Bottom