Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Mr. and Mrs. Chickadee....




I mentioned a few weeks back that some chickadees would probably be nesting in my nest box. This past weekend I finally noticed them preparing the nest. The two pictures were taken Sunday morning and as you can see these chickadees were backlit so I used my flash set at - 2/3 exposure compensation to add a little light and put a catchlight in the eye. They're used to seeing me around so I was able to get pretty close. The top photo is the male and the bottom one is the female.

8 comments:

Eve said...

I love chickadees! Great photos and good luck to them!! I won't ask how you know which is the female and which is the male!! ;-)

Nick S said...

Great job on the techs with the Chickadees John.
I often have to end up taking backlit shots. If there's a bird there and there's no time to get the sun behind you, you do what you must :-)

abb said...

I really would like to know how you tell male from female - I've never noticed a difference.
Wonderful photos!

kjpweb said...

Excellent portraits! I'm amzed how close you got.
Cheers, Klaus

Mary said...

I'll ask....how do you know which is which? I've never seen any difference?? Lovely photos of them! Chickadees just have to be one of the cutest birds around.

Sandpiper (Lin) said...

One of my favorite birds. I hope you get to see babies soon.

Stacey Olson said...

John, wonderful images of these beauties.. such friendly little birds.. but they do flit around pretty fast so great job photographing them.

Anonymous said...

Beautiful. One of these days my bird shots will look like yours.
:-)