Photographing Birds in Southern Arizona

We've been visiting places near Tubac, Arizona, where birds can be seen and photographed. We are in an area important to birders, the northern tip of the Sonoran Desert, with mountains and lowlands next to each other, different species at different elevations and various degrees of moisture.

It's fun catching these little guys in the lens, still the outcomes are partly a matter of luck and circumstance.

Pyrrhuloxia, a desert relative of cardinals

That one felt to me like a successful picture. Is it always like that? How does picture-making generally go? At Sonoita Creek State Natural Area, there's a bay, with coots. Coots are rather bad-tempered birds, and often chase each other. Thus they are very watchful of each other, though not very shy of humans. I watched them for some time, made maybe 15 shots, and here are two.

American coot

Same flock, note odd half-webbed feet

Isn't that interesting? Same flock, they all looked the same color, yet there's a huge difference in the photographs. This has partly to do with the reflectance of the feathers and the angle of the sun. The swimming bird is broadside to the sun but the walking bird heads into the sun, its feathers at more of an angle to the light. 

That's not all. See how there's less detail in the bill of the swimming bird? That's because the camera read the dark water as lighter, and made the whole shot lighter, than would have been ideal. 

Then it read the pale dock as darker, and so the whole second shot is darker, including the bill. The automatic exposure is always adjusting toward middle grey.

Lots of issues with color. With this Sage Thrasher, the late afternoon shadowy light makes everything look bluer than real. It's actually a rather brownish bird.

Sage Thrasher, with increased contrast using paint.net

So is there a little bit of uncertainty?...oh, yes. Next here's a sequence trying to capture this Canyon Wren if possible. One bird and a couple minutes.

Sit up!

Where'd he go?

Turn around!

Could you please step farther into the sun?

This somewhat frustrating series was at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum outside Tucson. Eventually I did better with a different Canyon Wren.

Persistence, that's the key. Here's another Canyon Wren, more successful, later the same day. Not perfect, but better.

Canyon Wren in shadow 

This is a fun game. Birds don't hold still. You have to use a telephoto because they're so small, but then frequently you can't even find them.

Or, they just will refuse to move into the sun, or they turn their back, or you know, they ignore what I have in mind for their big opportunity. 

Gila Woodpecker, wrong side of tree

Sometimes my little automatic camera insists on focusing not on my subject, but on something else, such as branches.

Inca dove in thicket, focus on tree and branch

But then, sometimes everything goes well. The bird holds still enough. The light is good enough. Focus is adequate.

Lesser Goldfinch, winter plumage, not seeming so brilliant

Lesser Goldfinch, winter plumage, males and females

by Nancy, with her darling little Panasonic Lumix DMZ-TZ6, Leica DC Vario-Elmar lens, bought in Rome a year ago.