{"id":255,"date":"2020-05-29T11:54:50","date_gmt":"2020-05-29T11:54:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michaelbward.com\/?p=255"},"modified":"2026-02-17T11:03:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T18:03:17","slug":"2020-5-28-nc-birds-101519","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelbward.com\/?p=255","title":{"rendered":"NC birds – 10\/15\/19"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I was in need of a new area to view wildlife. There are just too many people around where I live in the metro Atlanta area. Every place I go there are always people out, which is the opposite of what I am looking for. People are rude and loud, scare off wildlife. And as much as it\u2019s cool to meet new people who ask me about photography, it\u2019s not why I\u2019m out there. <\/p>\n

So, from the heavily populated Atlanta, to the practically empty town in NC my dad lives in. I\u2019ve been up there to shoot before, but not to this particular place. I found a nature trail on google maps and decided to go up the next Friday night so I could be outside at sunrise.<\/p>\n

I also picked up my sister on the way, since she lives north of me. And we both hadn\u2019t seen our dad in a while. I didn\u2019t expect her to be willing to go on the nature walk, but she was awake and up for it at 6am. So out we went.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Canon 5D Mark II w\/70-200 – 1\/800 Sec – F2.8 – ISO 400<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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I got to play around with the 70-200 2.8, and boy it easily became my favorite lens. I didn\u2019t even get a version with image stabilization for price reasons. But the low light capabilities from such a wide aperture was a world of difference. And the auto focus! I didn\u2019t know a lens could be that fast and accurate. You really do get what you pay for.<\/p>\n

We didn\u2019t spot too many birds I could get a good shot of, but we did watch a squirrel run out on some branches of a tree. Grab a nut and bring it back for snacking.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Canon 7D w\/Tamron 150-600 – 1\/400 Sec – F6.3 – ISO 3200<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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We also found an abandoned Frisbee, there was a disc golf goal somewhere along the trail. Which obviously had to lead to us goofing around and capturing this magnificent picture.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Canon 5D Mark II w\/70-200 – 1\/1000 Sec – F2.8 – ISO 400<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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It was out where the disc golf was that the woods had opened up and we had big open fields around us. I managed to take a shot of a blue jay in flight up in the sky.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s better than I have gotten with pointing the camera up in the sky, much much faster shutter speed than I\u2019ve done before.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Canon 7D w\/Tamron 150-600 – 1\/4000 Sec – F8 – ISO 1600<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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That was it for the nature walk. Unfortunately we saw most of the wildlife early in the morning, and although the 70-200 would have handled the low light better, it didn\u2019t have the reach I was going for. So trading off between the two I really didn\u2019t get that good of results. I wanted more reach with that wide aperture\u2026 hmm..<\/p>\n

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Back at the house I turned to the bird feeder, I\u2019ve taken a good amount of pictures of it before. But not with this kind of setup. And I was pleasantly surprised to capture images of two new birds for me. The Carolina Chickadee and the Tufted Titmouse.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Canon 7D w\/Tamron 150-600 – 1\/2000 Sec – F8 – ISO 3200<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Canon 7D w\/Tamron 150-600 – 1\/800 Sec – F8 – ISO 2500<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Canon 7D w\/Tamron 150-600 – 1\/800 Sec – F8 – ISO 2500<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Canon 7D w\/Tamron 150-600 – 1\/1000 Sec – F8 – ISO 2000<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Canon 7D w\/Tamron 150-600 – 1\/1000 Sec – F8 – ISO 2000<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Canon 7D w\/Tamron 150-600 – 1\/1000 Sec – F8 – ISO 2500<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Canon 7D w\/Tamron 150-600 – 1\/1000 Sec – F8 – ISO 2500<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Then it was on to an afternoon of yard work and being taken out for lunch before heading home. A short trip, but that\u2019s about all I could afford with needing to be back on Sunday for groceries and meal prep for the work week. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was in need of a new area to view wildlife. There are just too many people around where I live in the metro Atlanta area. Every place I go there are always people out, which is the opposite of what I am looking for. People are rude and loud, scare off wildlife. And as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-old-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelbward.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelbward.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelbward.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbward.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbward.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=255"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbward.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1816,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbward.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255\/revisions\/1816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelbward.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbward.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbward.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}