More Corvids Coming at You

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(Edited)

Stellar's Jays

All the Corvid Crazy wrapped up in a beautiful Blue package.
This is also my entry for the Show Me A Photo Contest Round #120
This week was another Free Theam


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Hello everyone and Welcome to my post, today I'm bringing you some images of a Steller's Jay.
This has to be one of my favorite Feathered Friends to visit the yard in the last couple of years. At first they were a little quiet and shy(they were nesting), but this year they seem to be ..... BOLD and more than a little devious >=)


Before I start, a bit about the gear.
My new Rig for Birding and Action photography.


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This is the Canon 7D Mark 2, 1.6 crop sensor with battery grip, attached to that is my Sigma 150mm-600mm C supper zoom telephoto lens( 1.6 crop sensor makes that a 240mm-960mm lens) and that rig is mounted on my new gimble head for the tripod.
I also accuired a Canon 7D Mark 1 with battery grip as well, it was used to take the images of the Mark 2 =)


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For the last couple of months I've been getting to know this camera and I LOVE IT =).
This rig will burst at 10 RAW frames a second with around a 17 image buffer, if your shooting JPEG It will burst at 10 per second until the card is full or it runs out of battery power because JPEG can't fill the buffer .
Oh good lord !! The amount of images I generate with this rig it almost absurd. If I go out for 3 or 4 hours I'll come home with 1000 to 1500 images on the card....
DO you know how long it takes to go through 1500 images ??!?? and I've been shooting almost every day for the last couple months.


So without further delay I give you the Steller's Jay


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I was going through the image files pulling out Jays and realized I have about 2000 images of them..... O.o
So I decided to start with the oldest shots from early spring and spread the reat out over several future posts.


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The one imaged here is feeding on suet debris(penut crunch) the woodpecker knocked loose, they will feed from the suet feeder every once in a wile but they usually roll in with the woodpeckers and let them do the work


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I think this one is a female as I've seen the other one that flies with her take and offer her food as a mating gift. I can tell them apart from the patch of light gray feathers under the beak that the other doesn't have.


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After policing up the penut crunch she's off to the trees.


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I have tons of shots of the same pose.... 10 frames per second lol..
so I tried to pick out the images that showed a nice pose or action in them


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Above is a front shot showing off the blue and white raceing stripes going up the crest


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I've been trying to get fly offs/ins and in flight shots so I've been running shutter speeds from 1/2000 to 1/5000 of a second depending on the size and speed of the bird


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Almost got that one but she flew behind the branch on the next frame and the auto focus went for the branch and left the bird in soft focus and obscured


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She's back a few minutes later perched on the Pear Tree


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It was a mixed bag of light this day, ranging from dark cloudy,bright overcast to full sun so I'm having to adjust the triangle (SS, Apiture,ISO) constantly as I've gone to full manual mode on the camera these days with nothing on automatic.


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Sometime I think my lens....<,< is shooting soft but then I start pulling tack sharp images from the groupe and realize it's the shakey old farts fault not the lens so I bought a gimble head. lol


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These were some of my favorite images of the day, I couldn't decide on the one above or below for my entry into the SMAP 120, so I ended up flipping a coin. The bottom image won the toss. lol


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Over the next few posts I'll tell you more about this wounderful bird and some of the corvid webs they weave.

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Almost got another fly off.... almost.
This time she launched out of frame, down I think lol
At 960mm you can loose track fairly easy. I'll back off to wider frame when I'm going for action


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That brings us to the end of todays post but fear not I have many more images of these beauties coming up for your enjoyment.
So stay tuned and I'll see you all next time on Feathered Friends

Note: Today is my birthday so please forgive any spelling, punctuation etc.
I'm a bit impaired =) cough cough

Habe a Great Weekend Everyone !!

Ooops almost forgot.
Tagging @corvidae for corvid post =)


Buzz on over to the Feathered Friends community and join
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22 comments
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As much as I love your Stellar Jay photos, I "dig your rig" even more! @chromiumone

@tipu curate

!LADY

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INR I can't seem to put it down.
It slept next to me on the spare pillow for the first week or so LOL
Thanks for dropping it today @ninahaskin always a pleasure ;)

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Such a beautiful bird… love the blue going to black in its feathers.
Great gear, you will get awesome photos with that for sure.
And I am the same… when I go out and about… I take 1000 photos hahaha
Have a wonderful weekend 👋🏻😊
!ALIVE

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I think shutter bug is the term. lol
Also Carla and Carlos are parents now they have a little girl. =)

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Yep it is 😋

Awww really. That’s is so cute. Thanks for letting me know. 🥰
Have a wonderful new week.
!HUG

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Happy Birthday!!!!!

Rad tripod setup you have there. I have a vintage tripod from the 90s (maybe even 80s). I really should get a new one.

Jays are hard to shoot, especially Steller's. Those shots are awesome! I really like the wings in this one:

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Definitely recommend watermarking your work, too.

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Hello @corvidae and thank you. =)
Yeah the JAys are hard to catch in flight, they spring into the air and most of the time they leap right out of frame but I'm getting better at it ;)
I have a chepo tripod I just replaced the ball haed with a budget gimble head.
I was lookng at new carbon fiber tripods recently as well but I decided to put that $300 into a Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 L Macro IS USM lens, almost have enough saved to get it.
I've toyed with the idea of watermarking my photos but one way is easy to crop out and the other way ruins the image for viewing here so I decided to skip it.

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Ooohh yeah buying a new lens is way more fun than buying a boring old tripod!!!

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Wow! We are so lucky to have you sharing your amazing photography with us. Looking at your equipment, it is easy to realize why my bird photos can't compare! It is interesting to see the differences between your Stellar's Jay and our Blue Jay.

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Thanks @melinda010100 I'm enjoying the new gear.
The Stellar's look to me like a Cardnal eloped with a Blue Jay.
THe Stellar's will also breed with regular Jays sometimes and produce hybrids of the two.

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Happy Birthday! 🎂🍾
Wishing you all the very best!
!LUV

Your gear is great and your photos are awesome. As always you bring so much joy with your post and photos. 🙂

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Thank You @nelinoeva !!
Happy to be here sharing them with the Feathered Friends here at the Hive =)

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Bro, great pictures!👍 This jay is so cute and brutal at the same time, she has such a funny mohawk😄
Impressive equipment!😱 960mm is something, with such a focal length, I think even the moon will not completely fit into the frame.

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Thank you @ratel I'm a big fan of your images as well.
Also thanks for reminding me I need to do another round of lunar shots.
The shots of the Jay were on a windy day so the crest was getting blown around giving it kind of dreadlock look to the crest. They are cool looking birds though.

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