We have a water feature in our yard so we have lots of backyard birding adventures. This summer I bought a special mount to take digital pictures through my spotting scope. This process is referred to as “digiscoping.” Unfortunately, many of the pictures I first took turned out blurry. I’m having much better luck with my brand new mount.
Here’s a photo of one of our California scrub-jays taken with my Google Pixel phone. Isn’t it a beautiful bird?
I used my point-and-shoot Panasonic Lumix camera for this one. It was a little tricky to hold it in place on the mount. This a European starling and an American robin.
We get tons of robins at this time of the year and they chase other birds away.
This image is blurry but it captures a frequent visitor, a robin, next to an infrequent one, an evening grosbeak. Glad I got a quick glimpse of the grosbeak!
Here’s another infrequent visitor, a hermit thrush, and, you guessed it! – a robin. Five different thrushes are in our yard at this time of year.
Mountain chickadees are a common visitor.
Lesser goldfinches are also common. Here’s a group shot of these little lemon-colored birds next to a house finch. We also see American goldfinches occasionally.
Dark-eyed junco are frequent visitors. They aren’t afraid of the robins.
The pygmy nuthatches are a bit more shy.
The house finches, on the left, and northern flickers, on the right, are not shy at all.
Backyard birding in action
One day I took a lot of pictures through the spotting scope (with the old mount) that didn’t turn out great. Google turned them into a GIF and I like how it turned out. It gives you an idea of how fast these birds actually move. 😀
I’ll share more of my backyard birding adventures as I get better at taking pictures through the scope.
What a treat! I love your water feature.
Thanks! The birds love the water feature too.
Beautiful photos of the birds and the video.
Thank you! Glad you liked this post from my yard.
These are outstanding! I love that California Jay. That would be a life bird for me. The starling and robin look like they are having a quaint conversation like friends or something. LOL! Water features attract so many birds that you would expect. 🙂 By the way, you might want to do a pingback to Terri’s backyard birds for Sunday Stills. https://secondwindleisure.com/2020/10/25/sunday-stills-kinda-backyard-birding/ That was her theme this week too to coincide with mine. You are not late. You have until Thursday night, midnight or so to get your post in. I do the roundup around 7am EST on Fridays. Terri’s Sunday Stills goes from Sunday-Saturday so we have all week to get that in too. 🙂
Thanks! The adaptive jays are expanding their range in the West. The robins have “conversations” with many birds in my yard. 😉 Thanks for the tip on the other challenge! I took more photos yesterday.
Sure thing! Terri’s challenges are always different, but this week was birds. 🙂
Hi! Glad you took Lisa’s suggestion and joined Sunday Stills! Your bird pics are great! Your google pixel phone took a fab shot! Don’t you love your Lumix? I love mine, I have the FZ300. It’s the only way to capture the close-ups and the darting hummers! I’ve read a few of your posts. We have some relatives in Bend (Sunriver area), we were just there last week on our way with a U-Haul moving a load to Spokane. I enjoyed the autumn show along the 197. No fall leaves yet here in Sacramento! Hope to see you back for Sunday Stills. My page shows the weekly themes in advance!
Yes, I love both my Pixel and my Lumix. Still learning on using them with the scope. Glad you got to see some fall color on your drive to Spokane. 🍁 Thanks for letting me know you have challenges listed in advance!