Carolina Wild Photo (the blog)

A week and a half after the big coastal snow the NC coast got hit again, this time with more ice and sleet than snow. Power outages and driving on more ice than snow would have made a trip to the coast a very bad idea for this round of weather. Instead I hung around home for the 5 inches we received, with some sleet on top of that, and more snow still on top of that. Though it’s been overcast and snowing, the sky has been a brighter overcast than on my coastal snow trip. That made it feasible to get some photos at home around the bird feeder.

Though there were Juncos, Goldfinch, Red-bellied Woodpeckers, Downies, White-throated Sparrows, Robins, Tufted Titmouses, Nuthatch and a spattering of other birds hanging around, my camera was drawn to the Cardinals. The brilliant red of the males is so photogenic with the snow. As a bird photographer acquaintance of mine put it – “Cardinals and snow go together like strawberries and creme.” Besides, with the not-so-bright light available, the photos needed all the color they could get, and the male Cardinals provided that.

I used the opportunity to try out the 400mm f/5.6 I’d bought a couple of months ago and hadn’t had a chance to really test it out. The problem was the only good perch by the bird feeder outside my window was barely past the minimum focus distance of the lens, and even with a full frame body it was hard to not cut off heads or tails. So I switched to my 300mm f/4 and a crop body which worked out just right. The minimum focus of the 300mm was more suited to the situation, and the extra stop of light helped too.

So what you see here are some of the better photos from an afternoon of shooting while the snow fell. Maybe I’ll use one for a Christmas card when the holidays roll around again.