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When I returned home, I heard a commotion in the tree next to the drive way. The noise turned out to be two or three Bewick's wren fledglings. Photographing one at close range through the twigs and leaves proved difficult. The shots I missed were an Anna's hummer flying in and hovering near the wrens to investigate the disruption to the peace and quiet.
Later that day I caught a robin making a food run at the marsh.
Tuesday I purchased a Canon 7D Mark II to complement my 5D Mark III for wildlife shots with high powered telephoto and telephoto zoom lenses. My son now uses my old 7D + 70-200L medium zoom for shots of passing trains. Friday (7/24) was the first overcast day I had to test the 7DII without distorting heat waves and glare, so I went to marsh hoping to photograph visiting shorebirds or get really lucky and spot the green heron again.
I saw shorebirds on the far side and took some shots from a tripod. The 7DII has a 1.6x crop factor, which is used to factor the 35mm equivalent (shown in parenthesis) of the camera + lens + teleconverter package.
I assume these shots are uncropped, Bill. They look good. Can't tell for sure, but the 1.4x shots do look a bit sharper than the 2x (which I would expect).
I assume these shots are uncropped, Bill. They look good. Can't tell for sure, but the 1.4x shots do look a bit sharper than the 2x (which I would expect).
The shots are cropped. I think the ones taken with the 1.4x teleconverter are sharper as well, although the 2x shots are not bad given the circumstances.
A few minutes ago I heard a strange bird call off my back deck and saw two birds in a tree about a block away. I grabbed some shots before they took off. The shots are poor due to the distance, darkness, and rain; but coupled with the distinct cry of the birds, I feel I can ID them as merlins.
Edit: I have received some e-mails from local merlin aficionados who believe the birds are two juvie merlins that have recently fledged. They also believe the nest is nearby as the calls made by the birds are begging cries directed at the parents to serve up dinner.
Saturday afternoon (7/25) I went down to the marsh after having slept through most of the Mariners' disappointing loss to the Toronto Blue Jays. I mounted the 5DIII + 500L + 1.4x II teleconverter on a tripod to look for shorebirds.
I was so "focused" on some least sandpipers out in the mud flats.....
that I failed to notice a semi-palmated plover until I edited the photos at home on my computer. I had committed the unforgivable sin of forgetting to check my exposure compensation settings and over exposed the shots. Picasa post processing to the rescue.....
Something flew over the marsh rather quickly. It had the size, speed, wing shape, and flying pattern of a small falcon like a merlin, not that of a small hawk like a sharp-shinned or Cooper's.
I got off a few grab shots with the 7DII + 100-400L II lens. The quality of the photos fell somewhere between Sasquatch and ID shots due to the distance and that I had also forgotten to check the exposure compensation setting on this camera as well.
A really,really bad shot..... but the only one which showed the bird's head.
I think the bird is a merlin due to its size, behavior, wing shape, and short tail; but it had a light yellow patch on its underside that I have not seen in photos of merlins in my bird books.
Actually those merlin shots are really amazing, Bill. I doubt I could have even fumbled around getting my camera to my eye before the bird would have disappeared. You are the master of the 'grab' shot. And yes, thank heavens for post-processing software!
Sunday (7/26) I did not have to leave my back deck or my neighborhood to photograph birds. All photos were taken handheld with my new 7DII + 100-400L II zoom.
Perhaps it is due to the recent cool, rainy weather, but Anna's hummers have returned to the feeders on my back deck after a long absence throughout the hot, dry spring and summer. I saw what looked like two females at one feeder in the morning and photographed this one at the feeder in the afternoon.
A family of four Steller's jays continues to make its rounds of the neighborhood. If they are not in my backyard, I can hear them squawking in a neighbor's. Three are visible in this photo while the fourth was on the rail around the corner of the deck from where I was standing.
I like this one's punker hairdo. The jays are full of bravado and drive my cat crazy.
I believe this is a juvie robin.
Band-tailed pigeon. I think more than one was in the neighborhood. They may be what is making a soft "cooing" sound from the trees in my backyard that my wife thought was an owl hooting.
The big news is the merlin fledglings. After hearing the pair screeching from the direction of her house, I called a fellow Bird Fest planning committee member to ask if she and her husband wanted to go merlin hunting. She asked me if that was what has been raising a racket from the trees in her backyard the past two days.
My son and I walked over to their house, which is two blocks west of mine. The juvie pair made a brief soiree around the neighbor (and may have flown past my house in the process) before settling on the branch of a tall Doug fir in the back yard of the house next to my friends' home. The shots were taken looking directly into the low evening's sun and were horribly back lit. I shot at +2 exposure compensation and still had to tweek them using Picasa.
Here is a "straight-on" shot with no exposure compensation and no tweeking. With the 7DII I can adjust exposure compensation while shooting in M mode. I don't think I can do that with the 5DIII, although I will have to recheck to be certain.
I am officially dubbing this pair the Maplewood Merlins, named after our neighborhood. The day before I had given someone doing research on merlin nesting in Seattle's urbania the rough location of where I had seen the pair from my back deck. Unbeknownst to me, he too was observing the merlins Sunday evening from another location close by. When I returned home, I got an e-mail from him stating that he had observed one of the parents delivering prey to one of the juvies.
We might have seen a third merlin while I was photographing the pair, which may have been one of the parents. As long as the pair keep crying, I will know when they are out and about and can track them on foot from my house.
Monday morning (7/27) one of the Maplewood merlins was flying around the neighborhood while calling loudly. It perched on a tree in the next court, then dove across my neighbor's backyard and flew over to Pine Ridge Park. The bird was very hard to track as it is both small and fast.
I spent sunset at Sunset Ave., the time when the Caspian terns come in to dive for fish. I was very happy with the way the 7DII and 100-400 II telephoto zoom tracked the birds.
Edmonds' Merlin Madness continued Wednesday evening (7/29) at the marsh. I have been in a state of high merlin alert while at the marsh as it was about a year ago that we photographed one catching dragonflys. This one appeared to be doing the same thing. Photography was difficult as sunset was less than a half hour away.
The merlin flew the eastern part of the marsh past me and landed in the tall tree near the #1 viewing platform, where I had been a few minutes earlier.
Had I remained at the #1 platform, I probably would have gotten some well lit shots instead of these horrible back lit ones.
The merlin took off and flew to a tree on the south side of the marsh next to Willow Creek. Taken with the 7DII + 100-400L II zoom + 1.4x III teleconverter. I had not bothered to drag out the 500L telephoto lens + teleconverter + tripod because I had to leave in less than an hour to pick up my son Daren from tennis.
The merlin appeared to watch a swallow fly by, but gave no pursuit.
Sorry for the small bird, but really tightly cropped shots do not look good. The distance from me to the merlin on the other side of the marsh is over 400 yards and it is barely visible to the naked eye.
I caught the merlin returning to the snag from one of its passes over the marsh.
The merlin stayed for a few minutes, then took off west to briefly perch on one of the telephone lines by the railroad tracks. It did not stay there long either as it took off for parts unknown while I wasn't looking. I wonder if this is the same merlin my friend Dave spotted about a mile north along Sunset Ave.
These photos were taken with the 7DII + 100-400L II. The auto focus of the 7DII is better than that of the 7D and the 5DIII. The 7DII does not handle high ISO settings as well as the 5DIII, but I would not expect it to at half the price. The 5DIII was attached to my 500L + 1.4x teleconverter, which I did not have time to get out of the car before the merlin flew away.
Looking at my old photos, it was a year ago that I took photos of a merlin at the marsh.
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Picasa post processing to the rescue..... 
