Bird Portraits

Some of my favorite close-up shots over the last few weeks

Female cowbird

I featured some shots of a male cowbird recently; this female doesn’t have the same dark feathers but got close enough for a very detailed shot. She stuck around, and I got a few other ‘atmospheric’ shots.

I got a strange photo of (I think) a sparrow, which was missing some of the feathers on the head. I did some searching, and I think this is because of mites or some other parasite. I’m hoping that the food we put out will help with recovery. (We keep our feeders very clean.)

Here are a few other up close shots with the 600mm setup (Sony 300mm f/2.8 lens with 2x teleconverter).

Purple finch

Goldfinch chasing off a purple finch.

I am seeing more nuthatches at our feeders this summer, but their coloring is not as rich and vivid as it has been in past years. Might be a tough year for them…this one looks a bit bedraggled.

Here’s a nuthatch photo from a few years ago:

And another from this year:

Finally, a shot of a redwing blackbird taken at Lake Wilderness in Maple Valley, WA a few days ago. Another case of parasites, I suspect. The bird acted otherwise healthy, but had lost a lot of feathers on its head. It was making courting calls from a typical high perch.