Junco close-up

Testing a new extender to get closer views of the birds

Junco with natural colors

Normally I tweak my bird photographs to emphasize color, but in this case I saved the image before doing that. I really like the subtle browns and grays around the shoulder.

Shot with the new 1.4X extender for the Sony 200-600mm lens, so this is at 840mm. Lots of great details. Here’s the original, slightly cropped in at the sides:

The flowers on the left are now ones that Donna picked up recently; they’ll be OK until we get to summer—the back deck gets really hot on sunny days and the plants can handle it. (Nor the humans; time to head for the yard or the front porch).

The feeder is Donna’s latest innovation: bird food with hot pepper on the seeds to discourage the squirrels. Most of the birds don’t seem to mind it, but the squirrels hate it and leave it alone.

Yep: the full photo has had a bit of a tweak to the color. Can’t resist the temptation!