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Photographed near Red Deer, Alberta on August 10, 2024 Although it doesn't look like it in the photo, the legs of the greater yellowlegs sandpiper are bright yellow in colour.  What's odd though is that the bird's scientific name, Tringa melanoleuca , has a reference to the bird's black (melan) and white (leuca) feathering.  It's quite odd how scientific names and common names can be so different or similar.  The Tibetan blackbird is a large thrush-like bird, but it has the Latin name Turdus maximus , where Turdus means thrush and maximum means large.  That's not how most people interpret it though. A similar bird, the lesser yellowlegs, is about half the size of the greater variety.  They do look somewhat similar; I found a good picture on the web that shows the two together.  You can view it by clicking here . Greater yellowlegs are shorebirds and can be readily identified by their long legs and bill.  They eat mostly aquatic invertebrates but will t...

An eared grebe with chick, photographed at Slack's Slough, Red Deer, Alberta, Aug 10, 2024. A black bird, on water, with a bright red eye, certainly stands out.  Sometimes called the black-necked grebe, both sexes share identical plumages.  I did not see the "eared" feathering, which are "golden plumes fanning out from behind the right eye" ( click here for reference ).  As the summer progresses they lose the distinctive feathers characteristic of the species during breeding season. Grebes typically are fish eaters, but the eared grebe is a little different.  Its smaller size, small head, and delicate bill are well-suited for eating aquatic invertebrates.  It prefers shallow bodies of water where food is easy to find.  It is interesting that the young can swim an hour after hatching. I used my 500 mm with a 1.4x teleconverter mounted on a tripod to get this shot.  The cropped-sensor camera multiplied the 700 mm to a relative 1050 mm giving about 21x ma...

Northern harrier hawk flying over Red Deer, Alberta wetlands.  August 10, 2024. A female northern harrier (above) was flying above Slack's Slough in Red Deer.  I was there photographing shorebirds and anything else that caught my eye.  Although I didn't get any shorebird photos that day, I did manage to photograph the harrier and an eared grebe and chick.  Both were first-time captures for me. I thought at first it might be a Harris hawk, but the white patch on the rump soon changed my opinion.  Northern harriers can be found throughout the continent, but are often associated with marshy areas.  They are unusual in that they nest on the ground instead of in a tree as most birds of prey do.   Males are gray above with whitish under feathering while females (and juveniles) are brown above with reddish underpinnings.  I saw the female gliding over the marsh, obviously searching for its next meal.  It suddenly dropped from the sky and disapp...

Solitary Sandpiper, photographed Aug 15, 2024, in Didsbury, Alberta. I have to say that I have always found shorebirds fascinating.  They typically have long bills and long legs and are found near bodies of water, both salt and fresh.  They often migrate long distances as they cannot survive in an environment where water freezes, especially along shorelines.  Most have drab colours and are not especially pretty.  What stands out about them is their behaviours. They eat insects, algae, and whatever detritus that happens to come along with what they consume.  It's the method though that is cool.  Some stamp their feet to disturb benthos, others twirl, some have a sewing-machine action while others just run along the shoreline looking for anything to present itself, all the while avoiding the undulating surf.  Every time I have seen them in action I have been transfixed.   I have been in Alberta for the last two weeks.  Although I have been...

 Using Flash - part 1 Kathryn in New Zealand - three photos comparing the use of flash. It's obvious that the camera and lens are the most import parts of any camera system, but what makes it better?  Most would argue adding another lens, which certainly has its merits.  However, owning a good external flash can have a remarkable impact on your photos. One of the keys to working with flash is to understand its relationship between itself and exposure.  How are flash, shutter speed, aperture, and ISO connected? It is best to break down flash into the two kinds that exist for DSLRs and mirrorless cameras (compacts, point-and-shoots, and bridge cameras as well).  There is the built-in flash and the external flash.  Built-in flashes are there for convenience; they have relatively little power but are useful in certain situations.  External flashes attach to the camera via a hot-shoe (some models use a PC connection) and typically come with more power and a...

 Dynamic range and HDR Center image shows bracketed photos, side images different degrees of HDR. Dynamic range is the ability of a medium like film or digital sensor to capture details over a range of light values.  A low dynamic range, say 5, means that there is about 5 stops of details from black to white; any light values past that are not captured because they end up being either totally black or totally white.  Jpegs have a dynamic range of about 8, meaning that they can captures 8 stops of light shades.  Raw sensor data tends to have a dynamic range of  12 or 13. HDR stands for High Dynamic Range.  It is an artificial process where several bracketed images are taken and the group combined into a single photo.  It can be done manually, as above, where a series of bracketed pictures are shot and saved on a hard drive where a computer program like Photoshop or Photomatix is used to layer them together.  The advantage of this method is that you...

 What is a stop? You can alter exposure by changing aperture, shutter speed, or ISO settings. A stop, in photography, is simply the halving or doubling of light.  It's easy to see in shutter speeds, where the change in light from 2 seconds to 1 second is a stop (2 seconds lets in twice as much light as 1 second).  It is also easy to see in ISO where you may change from a value of 200 to 100 (an ISO of 200 requires only half the amount of light on the sensor to make a proper exposure as 100 does).  Aperture is very different though.  Have a look at the exposure bar values below. Each large bar is a 1 stop change in value For aperture, the change is not at all intuitive.  For example, if you want to let in twice the light through the lens, which is set to f/4, you would reduce the aperture number to f/2.8.  An aperture of f/2.8 lets in twice the amount of light as an aperture of f/4. The values may seem complicated at first, but you will soon get to unde...

Brown-headed cowbirds lay their eggs in the nests of other birds. Brood parasitism (also called nest parasitism in birds) occurs when one species relies on another species to raise their own offspring.  Such is the rare behaviour of Brown-headed cowbirds.  A female will find the nest of another species, often a smaller bird, and lay her egg in with the existing clutch.  The kicker here is that females may lay up to 10 eggs, and often lay only one egg per nest.   The egg itself is larger than the other eggs; the host bird may not recognize it as being foreign.  Some birds, such as yellow warblers, may reline a nest with a cowbird egg and start over.  It was once observed that a yellow warbler built 6 nests, each atop the other, to avoid being victimized in such a manner. The terrible thing is that the cowbird chick is larger than its foster brothers and sisters and will eject them from the nest.  It also competes for food brought by the parents whi...

 Making the right exposure in auto modes Nairn Falls.  Left +1  Middle 0  Right -1   Bracketing 3 frames by one stop. When light falls onto a digital light sensor, such as a CMOS chip in a digital camera, the tiny wells making up the individual pixels generate small amounts of current.  That current is converted into pixels (numbers that possess position and colour)  and then processed through the camera's processors.  The data is stored on memory cards after this.  Jpegs are formed in this manner; raw files receive less processing and are stored as proprietary files. It is important that just the right amount of light fall on the sensor making up the image.  Too much light causes overexposure (top image, left) while too little light causes underexposure (top image, right).  What is desired is just the right amount of light to produce a proper exposure. The problem with over and under-exposures is that details are lost in the blown-...