Juvenile Oriole Outside the Window

I have an Oriole Feeder outside the living room window and this evening I watched a juvenile Oriole visit the feeder.  There is a lot of foliage between me and the bird with a palm in the living room and outside a passion vine and blood orange tree, but I'm still able to see the young bird.  It stayed much longer than an adult bird.  The second an adult bird notices any movement within the house, it will fly away.


Hooded Oriole



Hooded Oriole

Hooded Oriole

Mark your calendar!

The Gazebo Plants and Flowers in Montecito California is having their Begonia Show in August!  This a very artistic presentation of many types of begonias and other exotic plants.  It has been compared to the world famous Chelsea Flower Show in England.  It's the best little flower show in California, so don't miss it.

Who built this nest?

I was visitng my friend Irene and she showed me this nest she found on a shelf next to her house.  She doesn'tknow what kind of bird built this nest.  I don't know either.  It doesn't look like it has been used, no broken egg shells, feathers or poo are inside the nest.

Mourning Dove in flight

I was out on the balcony one evening and took this picture of a Mourning Dove that was flying by.  The sun was low in the sky and made an interesting effect.


Mourning Dove



Black-headed Grosbeak at the Oriole Feeder

Here is a female Black-headed Grosbeak checking out the Oriole Feeder.

Just another Oriole at the feeder

The Hooded Oriole is my favorite bird and I like watching them at the feeder.  This was the bird that first got me interested in putting out feeders.  One day I saw the beautiful yellow bird in the eucalyptus tree so I went to the local Birds Unlimited store to find out what it was and bought my first Oriole feeder.

Here's a video of an Oriole just drinking nectar.

A Male Oriole is busting out with some dance moves

I found this video amusing.  The male oriole is busting out with some dance moves.  Bob to the left, now bob to the right!

Young Male Oriole

Heres a video of a young male Hooded Oriole at the bird feeder.  Notice the black feathers that are coming in on his bib.

Crows love the new Birdbath

So I got a new birdbath and it's a hit with the crows!


American Crow



American Crow



American Crow

Here is a video of the Crows checking out the new "watering hole".

A few Band-tailed Pigeons have been to the new birdbath.  Here is one bravely taking a drink with a crow looking on. 

American Crow and Band-tailed Pigeon

Band-tailed Pigeons are the largest pigeon in America and this one is about the size of the Crow.  However it is no match to the crows attitude and beak.  Here the Band-tailed Pigeon has decided to move on.

American Crow and Band-tailed Pigeon

Here's a video capturing the tension between the two birds.

4th of July 2011

Here are some pictures of the 4th of July fireworks in Santa Barbara.  Between the fog rolling in and the smoke blowing in our direction, it made for some interesting pictures.  I started out using my Canon EOS T2i, but it automatically raised the ASA up to 3200 and it looked like the city was on fire.  I didn't have time to learn how to manually set the ASA, so I ran down stairs and grab my old Canon EOS XT and used that camera body.  The T2i does a fantastic job of shooting in low light without any noise.  This just happened to be one of those rare situations where it was a disadvantage.  I'm glad I kept the old camera body and was able to find it quickly.

  

Happy Fourth of July!

These are pictures of the fireworks from last years 4th of July display in Santa Barbara.  Last evening it was really foggy, so it will be interesting to see if we can see any fireworks tonight.  Have a happy fourth of July!

Viola Timelapse Photography

I thought it would be interesting to plant some Viola seeds under some grow lights and turn on the time lapse camera.  From these pictures I have made two videos.  The first video starts when the plant has just poked through the soil.  It's eight weeks of growing condensed into 39 seconds of video.

 Of course another plant was the first to bloom, so this second video is a different plant.  This is seven days of growth condensed into a 30 second video. 

The camera I used is called the PlantCam and its made by the same company that makes the BirdCam.  I had it taking one picture every 30 minutes for 11 hours a day.  I used video editing software to make the final videos.