Carolina Wild Photo (the blog)

For my second installment I’ve pulled photos from previous years when there was snow. The birdbath is a haven for the birds during these icy days. With my feeders nearby, the running water is a bonus for my little feathered visitors. I’m repeating the birdbath photo taken with an old cell phone that I showed in the previous post to remind you what it can look like in a big snow. This is why I can get shots when the ground is covered in snow and frozen over. Like this little Bluebird, everything in the area is drawn to this birdbath when conditions are so harsh.

In this photo my resident mated pair of Bluebirds brave the cold and ice to get a drink of water after a snack of meal worms. Not visible in the photo is running water, behind the snow piled around the edges of the birdbath. This pair has raised at least three broods a year since March of 2015 when I put up my first Bluebird house. Within a few days of installing the birdhouse the Bluebirds were already checking it out, and soon moved in, returning to it every year since.
One of my favorites at the birdbath is the Cardinals. Particularly in winter, the male’s brilliant red color is especially cheery on a bleak winter day. Even the female Cardinals, with their feathers of red and golden brown are colorful enough to brighten a snowy scene. Between feeders and the birdbath I often have three or four pairs of Cardinals in view at the same time.

I’m particularly interested in shots of the Cardinals in the snow since they make great images for my custom Christmas cards. I try to get new images every year when it snows so I have a selection to choose from for the next year’s card design. It all comes down to whether we have enough snow in a particular year to show up in the photos. It’s always a plus if I can take some photos while it’s snowing.
This Goldfinch image was taken during a snow, but it was a light snow, and the snowflakes don’t show up very well. Of course, there are times when it’s snowing so hard the flakes between the bird and the camera are just big blurry white spots, and that’s something of a problem as well. And then there is the poor lighting from overcasts skies that makes it difficult to get good exposures and shutter speeds.

I get a good variety of birds at the birdbath, even in the snow, but obviously some are more colorful than others. The rich red accents of the male House Finch are more photogenic than the female’s simple brown coloration, for example. It takes that rich pop of color to make the otherwise drab winter browns and plain white of ice and snow into an interesting photo.

My little heated birdbath has provided me with many nicely detailed closeups in all seasons. Even when the birds don’t visit the feeders so much in the summer while food is plentiful, they always come for a drink of water, or a cooling bath. It’s the ultimate gathering spot all year round, and never fails to entertain me.

Well, it’s late March and finally I feel like there is little threat of any more freezing temperatures. So I decided to look back at the February snow and some of the photos I got of birds while those frozen flakes were coming down. Every year I try to get some new shots of birds in the snow to use for my Christmas cards. Looks like maybe this male Cardinal will be the one I’ll use when Christmas rolls around again. (continue reading…)

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.
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Well finally, a month into my retirement, I got my break… sorta. Actually I simply took a big chance and drove to the Outer Banks a few hours before the big snow of Jan.28-29, 2014. Snow on the Outer Banks (any snow, much less several inches) was a rarity indeed, and I didn’t want to miss this opportunity. The plan was to arrive just before the snow hit so I’d be positioned to get some photos. I knew if I didn’t get there before the snow, I wouldn’t be able to get there at all before it started melting. I reached Nags Head and got a room just as the first of the sleet and snow began to fall on the 28th. Based on the forecast that the 29th afternoon and the 30th would be sunny, it was a good plan. Problem was…. no sunshine. Dull overcast skies prevailed the entire time, so any chance for “good” shots was all but dead. I found enough subjects to shoot, but with such poor light there was no good color or vibrancy in the images.

As soon as the snow quit on the 29th and I could get out on the roads, I headed straight to Bodie Island Lighthouse. I discovered, much to my surprise, that all the pine trees in the loop drive in front of the lighthouse had been cut down. There was no sign they had ever been there. This opened up the view for wide angle shots that were not possible in the past. The dark overcast made for dull images, so I had to make do as best I could.
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