If you’ve been keeping up with me on Facebook (I really need to work on posting to other social media sites, sorry!), you’ll know that at work we had the pleasure of watching a little nest of baby Blackbirds grow up. It was a great excuse to bring my camera to work every day, and I spent my lunch-breaks trying to get photographs of the parents feeding the babies. The nest was in a tree just outside a window, so I had to shoot through the glass and stay relatively still – the birds could see through the window, and the parents were quite flighty – especially the more distinctive father.
Trying to get a clear view of the nest through leaves and branches, limited in movements my the glass, was just about impossible. I had to settle for gaps and make the best of it, but I think I got some nice images that also give the environment around the nest, and dense foliage that made it a great nesting site. I used my Macro lens, as I needed the aperture wide open to get the shallow depth of field to blur the leaves, and get fast enough shutter speeds in the shady corner. Luckily the nest was a perfect distance away to get good framing with a 105mm lens!
Here’s to hoping the nest will be used again, so I can have another go at documenting the growth of baby birds.
Here’s what I used to get the images:
Nikon D700, Sigma 105mm f/2.8 Macro
ISO vary between 640-1600
Aperture vary between f/3.2-f/5
Shutter speeds between 1/100 to 1/320th sec
