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House Sparrows Are Busy Building Their New Breeding Nests

It’s that time of year again where many birds are preparing to lay eggs. We have a large population of House Sparrows at the Quinta and they are busy building new nests to lay. Both the male and female are working hard collecting material.

A few pairs build nests inside the porch of our front door and this morning there was a mating pair busy early. They were backlit by the rising sun so I grabbed a shot of both the male and female with material.

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Male House Sparrow
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Rush Hour at the Feeders

Just as an experiment, I pointed the camera at one our feed areas in the garden and set it to take a photo every 5 seconds. I left the camera for about an hour. Then I selected 60 shots and merged them to create this single shot. The sun was a bit too strong and still high in the sky, so the photo is a bit washed out, but not bad for an experiment.

It just goes to show how busy the feeders are!

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Rush Hour at the Buffet - D810, AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8E @ 70mm, f/8, ISO400, Shutter speed varied from shot to shot - {Flickr Link}

Another Sparrow Shot from the Reflection Pool

Here’s another shot from my DIY Reflection Pool.

As it was just a test setup, I’ve dismantled it again now, but will be rebuilding it again soon in a slightly different layout and hopefully a different location to try and get a better background.

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House Sparrow Reflection
Mirror Image – D810, AF-S 300mm f/2.8 @ 300mm, f/9, ISO800, 1/200sec – {Flickr Link}

More Bird Photos From The Garden

The sun came back out and so did the camera! There was a bit of haze high in the sky which was creating a really nice diffused light so I went back out and sat in the pop-up hide for an hour.

Apart from the usual House Sparrows and Blue Tit, a Nuthatch turned up along with another Starling.

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Male House Sparrow
Male House Sparrow – D810, AF-S 300mm f/2.8 @ 300mm, f/5.6, ISO640, 1/500sec – {Flickr Link}
Nuthatch
Nuthatch – D810, AF-S 300mm f/2.8 @ 300mm, f/5.6, ISO450, 1/500sec – {Flickr Link}
Blue Tit
Blue Tit – D810, AF-S 300mm f/2.8 @ 300mm, f/5.6, ISO125, 1/500sec – {Flickr Link}
Starling
Starling – D810, AF-S 300mm f/2.8 @ 300mm, f/5.6, ISO180, 1/500sec – {Flickr Link}
House Sparrow
House Sparrow – D810, AF-S 300mm f/2.8 @ 300mm, f/5.6, ISO250, 1/500sec – {Flickr Link}

Sparrow in Flight

For about 10 minutes today, the large flock House Sparrows we have in the garden were raiding the Suet Feeder like a bunch of looters. So I thought I’d try and get a shot of one flying into land. This female is the best of the shots coming into land feet first.

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Landing Gear Out - D810, AF-S 300mm f/2.8 @ 300mm, f/5 ISO1600, 1/2000sec - {Flickr Link}

Bad Light doesn’t always stop play

It’s been a pretty bad weekend for photography, a lot of the weekend was darker than the Eclipse last week. However, in the break between the heavy rain today, I was determined to get out and photograph some of the birds in the garden even though the light was pretty bad.

I’m quite happy with the results below which just goes to show, that bad light doesn’t really have to stop play. OK, they are not pin sharp and would never win any competitions, but it doesn’t matter if you’re out enjoying the hobby and the reason you do it. Some of the photos are quite high ISO too and the noise is quite well contained for a Crop Sensor Camera.

Puffed Up Blue Tit - D7100, AF-S 300mm f/2.8 with TC14EII @ 500mm, f/8, ISO1800, 1/250
Puffed Up Blue Tit – D7100, AF-S 300mm f/2.8 with TC14EII @ 500mm, f/8, ISO1800, 1/250
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