Tag Archives: gilded flicker

Flash Flood Warnings

Posted on by
48

Mrs. found a perch on one of the flamingos.

Red prefers the Beavertail cactus art.

The past few days have been stormy and wet! The rain doesn’t seem to stop. We were supposed to go to a friends’ house for dinner when my phone started blowing up with warnings.

Along with the scary words, a horrendous sound goes off.

I called our friends and questioned if we should cancel and stay home due to the phone warnings. However, we ended up going because it’s uphill a mile and there wouldn’t be any washes to drive through. The rain had stopped when we drove and the roads were drying up.

Unfortunately, the entire area was not that lucky. To date, four people lost their lives who were in their cars about an hour south of us. I don’t think these warnings should be taken lightly.

The roadrunner paid us a visit. He moves quickly and this was the only picture I managed to get.

House finch on the beavertail art.

A spotted a gilded flicker in the tree.

This house finch looks all fluffed up.

Have you had any weather warnings this early Fall? If so, what have they been about?

Birds and More

Posted on by
41

This chipmunk was part of last week’s photo assignment. The photo is an example of Point of View. It turns out my sunken pool bar is good for more than bird photography. I like the perspective of being eye to eye with the critters.

For the assignment, I had to pick three out of severn composition techniques or aesthetics. My three were Point of View, Depth of Field and this one is called Centering. It’s a Century Plant stalk. The professor said centering is one of the most dissed aesthetics, but can be effective.

The House Sparrow photo shows off Depth of Field. I like how the background is out of focus and looks like an impressionistic painting. I had rarely noticed the yellow planter barrel before, but it’s finding it’s place in my photos.

Mr. Curve Billed Thrasher was another example of Depth of Field. I like how he pops out of the photo from the blurry background. He also shows an extreme dislike of my taking his picture.

Photos I took for fun:

Red gets his time in the limelight. But he’s been pretty flighty, even though he yells at me to fill the feeder every morning and afternoon, he doesn’t stick around for a lengthy photo session. The photo below has wispy aloe blossoms in the foreground that look ghosts or accidental lights. The focus was on Red.

However, there are other birds in the yard to photograph:

Gilded Flicker.

House sparrow.

Mrs. Red on the yellow barrel.

This quail reminds me of myself, facing a steep walkway.

My newest objective is to catch birds in flight. With a fast enough shutter speed you can stop their action. But I wasn’t very good at getting the whole Mourning Dove in the picture.

Which photos do you like and what’s your favorite of my three composition techniques?

Views around the house

Posted on by
31

I caught this Gilded Flicker hanging out in a tree.

Leaving for my morning walk these blue flowers caught my eye.

A view of the pool bar and waterfall. The swim up stools are on the other side of the countertop.

Walking past our house I noticed these flowers for the first time ever on the side of our house. It looks like bougainvillea and I’d like to plant more. I wonder where this one came from? Maybe it hasn’t bloomed before.

My husband said he’s noticed them. So I guess I’m in a fog while I start my walk.

I knew once my walk was over, I’d have to get out my camera and tripod to take pictures of the bougainvillea. But then I thought, why not try shooting things in the yard without the tripod. If the shots turned out fuzzy, I’d do the extra work with the tripod. I’m satisfied with my “freehand” photos.

Glass flowers by the fireplace. They glisten in the sun.

This tortoise is hiding in a corner of the yard.

The prior owners were into yard creatures. At first I thought they were tacky, but they’ve grown on me. Friends gave me a birthday present of pink flamingos from Costco. At first I thought those were tacky, too. But I put them in the yard with all the other crazy things. They fit right in.

pink flamingos
The birthday present pink flamingos grace our yard.

A friend of mine from college went hiking with us when we first moved to Arizona. She stared out our windows and said, “You sure have a lot going on in this yard.”

Isn’t that the truth?

While I was writing this, a huge Harris Hawk soared into the yard. I yelled because he was after my quail. He flew powerfully overtaking a quail in flight. But I scared him before he caught one. He decided to hang out on our fence and survey the area. The quail all scattered into the brush.

I’ve tried multiple times to catch a hawk in flight with my camera. They take off so quickly and get hidden behind trees and brush. I have failed so far!

Yes, there’s a lot going on in my yard.

What’s going on in your yard?

A few visitors

Posted on by
35

While we had visitors from Washington, we had this kitten stop by for a few hours. The bottle in front of the kitten is bug spray for the “no see ums.”

Our Washington visitors were brand new friends in 2021. We were introduced to them by the friend who brought us out to Arizona. He introduced us to the other couple before he died of Valley Fever Thanksgiving 2021. He also introduced me to my husband 40 years ago in Seattle.

The couple who stayed with us the past few days, still live in the Seattle area but bought a home here that they will retire to. It’s now a rental home for them.

While my mom was alive and in assisted living, I’d get together with this new friend, who lived a few miles from where my mom was. I feel like our friendship with this couple deepened throughout the few days they stayed with us this week. We shared our childhoods, stories about our kids, parents and found more connections.

While they were here, we had visitors of a wilder kind:

I wonder where the momma cat is? This is the youngest kitten I’ve seen alone. Does he have siblings?

Eventually, the kitten curled into a ball and fell asleep

First time I’ve had a cardinal visit in a couple months.

What is this Gilded Flicker doing? It looks like he’s trying to remove a screw with his beak.

What visitors have you had lately?

Bird Buddy Update

Posted on by
17

A Gilded Flicker who visited my Bird Buddy feeder.

I received a notification to update my Bird Buddy AI feeder. That’s when the trouble began. The update stopped halfway through the process. I read the instructions on the app. It said to press the on button until you got a flashing green light. I pressed and got a red flashing light.

Then the app said my bird feeder was offline. I spent the better part of a day fiddling with it. In order to do the update, the helpful notes said to fully charge the camera unit.

I brought the Bird Buddy inside, unscrewed the camera and plugged it in for hours.

I won’t go through all the things I tried repeatedly. But I finally decided I should do a factory reset. I was quite upset, because the Bird Buddy has given me lots of joy the past few weeks. I’d be frustrated to have it break already.

I wrote about Bird Buddy HERE and posted bird photos on Thanksgiving.

The Bird Buddy has to pair with Bluetooth on your phone. It also has to be connected to WiFI. I couldn’t get either to work. It worked until I tried the update.

Fortunately, the app has a troubleshooting tab and I went through the steps. It turns out I had inadvertently done a factory reset by pressing the button too long — getting the red flashing light.

I had to unpair the Bird Buddy from my Bluetooth and remove my feeder from the App. Then I started over as if it was a new feeder and Voila! It works again.

I bought a Bird Buddy for my soon to be 91-year-old dad. I will set it up for him and hopefully he won’t have issues with updates!

With electronic devices, are you handy at figuring them out or do you let someone else in your family fix issues? What frustrates you about electronics?

A Curve-Billed Thrasher.