Digital Warbling

It's amazing what digital cameras have done to make photography (or lack of) more accessible to everyone. Personally, I've always been fascinated by it, took photography classes, used a dark room for years; but until the purchase of my new Nikon earlier this year I'd given up trying to take a lot of photos. It was just too expensive.

Case in point? Warblers. Well, actually birds in general.

How many of you have shot tons of film only to have a couple good photos at best? Now, with my trusty camera, stoop sitting with a glass of wine during this year's phenomenal warbler migration is my favorite current pastime. (Well, not as much a favorite, kind of a cherry, not grape.)

And, to my utter amazement, I actually got a few warblers on camera. No, they're not good photos by any means, but the fact that I even captured them while manually focusing an older telephoto lens (had it from an earlier Nikon and don't have the budget right now to purchase a new lens) shocks me. Not to mention the fact that as I said, it's usually done with a glass of wine in hand. It's something I never would've tried with a film print camera.

Last Friday night, Friday the 13th actually, we had a phenomenal migration of warblers pass through the trees just 50' from our house. We counted more than a dozen species including magnolia, redstart, N. parula, Tennessee, yellow, chestnut-sided, Blackburnian, black and white, yellow-rumped, Nashville, mourning, Wilson's and Connecticut (at least I think it was a Connecticut).

This caused a flurry of digital warbling. Some passable:

And others not so much (but fun nonetheless):

I've decided the Northern Parula is the fastest moving warbler I've seen. It never sits still.

A couple Blue-gray Gnatcatchers are still around and joined in the party, too. 

Think this one is my favorite, simply due to the bird's funny position and how he seems to be moving with the branch:

So, a big THANKS to Nikon for bringing a new challenge to my world!