Week 46 by Becky

Irritated!

Yes, another Mockingbird photo. I would not have caught this photo if I wasn't busy trying to complete another photo challenge that Judy and I are doing. That is, we pick a day and take a photo or more every waking hour of what we are doing at that particular moment. I had picked April 14th as my day. I just finished doing my 8am photos and was sitting on the porch enjoying my coffee when this squirrel had approached my chair. I was like WOW! I had my camera handy so I attempted to take a photo of the squirrel. The squirrel started to move in the direction of the Mockingbird nest. Out of nowhere two Mockingbird parents appeared. This one had landed on the security sign in the front garden. The squirrel gave me the view of his backside so I decided I would take the photo of the protective Mockingbird parent. When I clicked the button, the parent had taken off and this is the result. Not super crisp focus, but I just though it was cool that I caught it in action as it got closer to the squirrel to protect its young. Which by the way are growing very fast. I hope to try to get a photo of them before they fly the coop :).

Week 45 by Becky

Mockingbird

At our photo club meeting, this past Tuesday, we had a couple speakers come in to talk about "Birding Photography".  Both are awesome bird photographers.  Well, the opportunity presented itself for me to try my hand at a little bird photography.  This Mockingbird has built a nest in a bush just off our front porch.  She laid three eggs a few weeks ago.  I checked them this morning and at least two have them have hatched. I told my son who came to look and that is when the mommy decided to fly over our heads to scare us away.  I ran in the house to get my camera to see if I could catch her flying into the nest.  This is her flying from one tree to the next.  She wouldn't come near the nest until I went inside.  The lens I used was a 18-200mm and I had to crop it down.