I haven't edited any photos in so long I was practicing on this photo from the archives. This was digiscoped using manual focus with a Panasonic GX1 and my first Swarovski scope.

© All Rights Reserved

Digiscoped with the Swarovski STX85 and GH4

© All Rights Reserved

This was taken to compare to the previous photo which was taken with the new Panasonic GH6. Taken at the same time (same lens, same distance) with my full-frame S1R for comparison. Converted in Photoshop from the original raw to highest quality .jpg with no adjustments of any kind.

Tags:   Panasonic S1R GH6

© All Rights Reserved

Testing the new sensor in the Panasonic GH6 with the Nikon 300mm f2.8 lens. This was shot in raw and converted to a .tif using Silkypix since Adobe doesn't have this new raw format in ACR yet. I used Photoshop to convert the.tif to the highest quality ,jpg, but no other processing, sharpening or NR was done on this image. It was shot at ISO 250.

I test every camera, lens and scope on my ever-willing subject, Barney, and the improvement from the GH5 and GH5s is enormous - it is comparable to my full-frame S1R, but with a 2x crop factor which will make it much more useful for wildlife stills.

© All Rights Reserved

On Feb. 8th we observed this pair mating and their newly excavated cavity in a dead maple tree on the edge of the swamp. The cavity is very well hidden behind dead branches and Spanish moss, and they even built it right under an overhang of separating bark that keeps the rain out. I recognize this male’s distinctive face and have been photographing him for years. I’ve been watching this female for at least two years – she drinks from the hummingbird feeder right in front on my PC.

The first clip was recorded on Mar. 23rd, and at the time we didn’t know if they had hatchlings yet or not, but I’ve since learned that incubation only lasts about 12 days for this species. From the detailed information I was able to find on birdsoftheworld.org, these nestlings are approx. 15-20 days old, and will fledge at around 24-27 days.

On Apr. 26th my husband heard and saw the parents very upset – vocalizing and flying back and forth from the nest tree to the large water oak a few feet away. After much searching, we found a large gray rat snake in the water oak trying to find a path over to the dead tree where the nestlings sat helpless in their cavity. As soon as we saw the cavity in the maple tree in February we wrapped the bottom of it with wildlife netting to prevent any rat snakes from reaching the nest. We have already removed one snake that became entangled in the netting and relocated him far away, so it was not possible for the snake to get up the maple, but his determination had him trying to reach the nestlings from another tree.

Tags:   bird birding woodpecker red-bellied Florida snake predator

© All Rights Reserved