Birding at Magee Marsh

Magee Marsh is a great place to go in May to capture migrating birds in the spring.  I will be posting a few migrating birds that I have found.  I think I will start out with some pairs. First is the Blackburnian Warbler.

Male (f11 1/1000 sec ISO 1600 no flash)

Female (f8 1/1000sec ISO400 flash)

This is a favorite because of its flame-orange coloring in the throat.  It has a triangular black cheek patch and a white wing patch.  Females color is more washed out.  They winter in the mountains of northern South America and summer in eastern southern Canada and northern United States from the Great Lakes to New England area.

Magee Marsh Intro

I finally made it to Magee Marsh after bad weather last year cancelled us out. The weather was great! The birds were great! The camaraderie with all the birders was great. I will be adding birds as the days go by. Today I start with two birds with similar names but very different. What variety! I am starting to get as addicted as the birders. What an amazing creator God is!

I was asked to share info on camera settings on the pictures I take, so here goes. When I shoot birds I use shutter priority mode, especially little 3-4 inch warblers that flit around I use 1/1000 sec and an f-stop from 400-3200 to give enough light to use an aperature of f8-11. I shoot with a Canon 7D II which has a crop sensor. I use a 100-400mm lens with a 1.4 teleconverter that equals 560mm. Some birds at Magee are close and I can fill the frame. Others are high up in the trees and the birds only fill 1/4 to 1/6 of the frame and I crop. I love if the birds have sun shining on them, but that is not always the case since the foliage coverage can put them in shadows. Therefore, a lot of times I use flash with my Better Beamer so it can throw the flash way up in those trees to reach the birds.

Black-throated Blue Warbler- male

Black-throated Green Warbler-female