I had so much fun with the bluebirds the other day that I had to go back and have another go. One of the luxuries of shooting from a blind and at a nesting site is that you are pretty well guaranteed that you’ll get more than one shot at your subject. The other day I took 3 times as many images as today, but I kept a higher percentage of my shots from today. First, I learned a few more things about them while watching and second, I really filled my portfolio with nice portraits from the first shoot. This time I really didn’t take a shot unless there was some reason. I know, shocking to actually use your brain FIRST. I rarely shoot anything but wildlife with the occasional space shuttle thrown in for good measure and I generally shoot a lot because those pesky birds just don’t sit still for long. Today though I took the time to wait for shots that were more interesting.

The nest building is ongoing and so there were plenty of opportunities to get some behavioral shots, which are almost always more interesting. During this mating season it is the guys job to look good and bring home some food. The lady of the house does all of the nest building and incubation. It was fun to capture him bringing her a spider and she was a bit unwilling to drop her load of grass for their nest. He finally gave her the spider and she took it all in the nest. Since the process was sort of slow I was able to move the focus point and select which bird was in focus. If I had opened up a few stops to get both in focus, I would have lost the creamy dreamy background… Thinking about what I was photographing let me make better images.

Lastly, with so many available images I’m more willing to make unusual crops, like the vertical panorama.

You can bet, I’ll be thinking of what else I can do with my friendly neighborhood bluebirds next time. Stay tuned.

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