The Blind: a work in progress

Photographing military aircraft or the aurora is much easier than photographing teeny-tiny birds. Even the bigger ones are wiley and smart with eyes like eagles (duh James).

While not a fantastic shot, this is an example of how close I'm able to get to our resident red-legged partridges (called Frenchies by the local farmers). My office has 2 large doors that open onto the back yard and with the air of curtains and some clamps I'm able to create a "blind" of sorts to view the action.

With spring approaching, more and more visitors are showing up. Earlier this week we saw a pair of great spotted woodpeckers. My youngest daughter was watching blackbirds in the bird bath when she said one of them "looks wrong" and upon closer inspection I realized why. Improvements on the blind are planned, will advise when there is more to report.

I should also let you know that more and more images are being added to the fine-art print galleries. Having recieved works from this fantastic e-commerce partner I can say with utmost confidence that you will LOVE the results. If you're looking for something extra special consider ordering a print on canvas. Incredible. something you'll pass down to your children.

Cheers!

~James

The Real Partridge Family

I am constantly amazed at how I can be doing something quite technically amazing (say, utilizing a broadband connection to share a Google Earth .KMZ file with friends and family) and in an instant be observing a wild animal turning the tables on me and observing... ME.

Case in point. This morning I was sitting here at the keyboard hard at work on the latest version of my photography website (OK, OK, I was multi-tasking and playing the My Little Pony game at the same time as Emmalea who whipped the pants off me) when that all-too-familiar bit of movement out of the corner of my eye made me pause. Just outside the office door looking quite intently at us was an honest dozen red-legged partridges (Alectoris rufa). All of them for what seemed like forever but was likely only just a couple of seconds. I felt rather violated. Here I am grinding my nubby fingers to the bone pecking at keys and THEY'RE LOOKING AT ME. Insert shiver HERE!

Well, we'll just turn the tables a bit. I knew they would scatter as soon as I moved but I did anyways, slapped on the 300mm lens as well as a 1.4x teleconverter and cranked the ISO up to 800 (digital, what a God-send for adverse light situations) and snapped off a few frames as they bolted across the yard and into the side bed of plants.

Similarly we had a beautiful pheasant cock do the same last night, but at least he was polite and looked away when eye contact was made. Thank goodness I'm not one of those aberrant naked E-bay fanatics. I always keep my socks on. ;-)


Cheers!

~James