Townsend's Solitaire

 I think if any bird were to swear, it would definitely be the Townsend’s Solitaire. In winter, when they move to lower elevations to feed on juniper berries, they do not like to share—no matter if it’s a small patch or a much larger area covered in juniper. And it doesn't seem to matter if the other birds are members of its own species. In the mountains, if you want to locate this thrush, go to an area with juniper berries, or if you come across Bohemian Waxwings away from urban areas, there’s a good chance there are juniper berries nearby—and one very ticked-off Townsend’s Solitaire. It will be calling out, making aggressive gestures with its wings and tail feathers, and going after individual waxwings as they try to eat the berries. Just last week, I could see and hear several hundred waxwings, but I could also hear one very agitated solitaire.

In the picture with the solitaire, its territory includes two patches of juniper berries. One is above the road, out in the open, which it has to defend from the waxwings. But this evening, toward the end of the day, it was feeding on berries hidden by the woods. When it needed a break, it would perch on one of three spruce trees while light snow fell. With an overcast sky and lack of light, I was able to get this picture with a blue-grey cast. 

Townsend's Solotaire

Photography became fun when I stopped listening to social media talking about the latest equipment. I have what I need and when I need to replace something that’s worn out, I will then look for it. This opened up my imagination, to get better I needed to put in the time. No matter what perfect brand of equipment you have, it has limits, but our imagination has no such limits. 

Second thing is, I don’t use filters or software to create the colourful backgrounds that are often in my wildlife images, including this one. When I have time, as I did when I came across this Townsend’s Solitaire perched on top of a four meter tall spruce tree. I know the limits of my equipment, the chocolate induced mind did the rest.

I was hiking up a slope to look for landscape opportunities. I heard the call of the solitaire among the juniper berries. The trail went around and then above them. When I was above, I stopped to get the pictures of the valley below. The bird popped up and perched about ten meters in front of me. I knew if it stayed there, I would get a nice focused image of the bird with a soft background. I took that image and then started moving left, right, up and down to get the blurred fall colours as the background from the valley bottom in the image. The warm colours are of the balsam poplar and trembling aspen trees, the blue greens colours are from the spruce trees.  

The subject, the bird, perched on top of two different trees for a couple of minutes, gave me a couple of different shots.  But moving around, each background provided a different opportunity. There are several brands of equipment that can help us get the same picture of the bird, but it's our imagination that can help us get something unique.

Townsend's Solitaire

Taking a good picture of birds has its challenges and trying to take pictures of birds in flight increases those challenges. So having knowledge of their behaviour goes a long way trying to get the picture. A snow storm had covered everything in sight, which left few places for the birds to go to for food, one of those place was this tree still holding berries. This Townsend's Solitaire  along with few other species of birds were busy trying to get the fruit. The solitaire would hover under the branches to grab the berries, each time it did that I would aim my lens to the spot and take the pictures. After couple of tries I got it.

Until next moment,

Amar

Townsend's Solitaire

 Was having a short lunch, decided to walk on the upper boardwalk with the camera in my pack. Half way up, I saw a bird fly off from the hand rail to top of a tree few meters away, it was a Townsend's Solitaire. The last time I saw one was eleven months earlier in the same area. It did not look as it was going to fly away. Quickly I went into my pack and pulled my camera out. Took few pictures until I saw a couple coming around the corner from the top of the boardwalk, the bird would be between them and I.

 As I expected, it flew off, but again not too far. I exchanged few words with the couple, then the focus was back to the bird. Was able to take number of pictures, it would go near the running warm water and then perch on a branch or the boardwalk's rails, repeated this few times. I was trying to figure out if it was looking for food and what that food would be. Luckily, I was able to take few pictures with the food being held in its bill. The experts tell me, its a spider.

Until next moment,

Amar