Well, it has been a while since I posted here, having being preoccupied with opening my Zenfolio gallery, birding and photographing Panama, and then photographing a nesting pair of Northern Flickers this spring. Here's one of the results of my efforts with the flickers. [Daniel Arias Barakat sends his greetings to you, Artie, we visited with him at length at the Canopy Lodge. I'm looking forward to seeing his Darien project.]
06/14/11 12:12:36 PM, Dundee, OR, USA
Canon EOS-1D Mark III
EF70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM +1.4x @ 280.0mm
Manual Exposure
1/8000 sec, f/8.0, ISO 2000
Evaluative Metering
Flash External E-TTL, SYNC
On camera Speedlite 580X II + flash extender + Speedlight 580X slave flash
Image cropped to 4 to 5 aspect ratio for composition.
Keeping the Red Alder snag by my back deck has paid wonderful dividends photographically this spring, and has underscored the importance of snag habitat -- it has become a virtual condominium! I felt so fortunate to have Red-breasted Sapsuckers nesting in it the last two years, and I mourned the loss of one of the two trunks this year -- waterlogged, it came crashing down one rainy night this winter.
However, this April, a pair of Northern Flickers excavated a nest cavity in the remaining trunk, and their brood is now within about a week of fledging.
So I've been glued to the camera, capturing images of their progress. Getting flight photos has been especially challenging. They dive from a high branch and are perched on the nest hole in a flash.
The BG for this flight image is of necessity dark, because of the dominance of high speed flash required to minimize the motion blur of this speeding bird. I had to max out my shutter speed, use ISO 2000, and suspend a slave flash unit on a long pole about 2 m from the pre-focused subject area to get enough light on the bird.
You're always welcome to view more of my work at http://cpmarkham.zenfolio.com







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