With that, I came running out to the living room to see what Sharon was looking at. Sure enough, the Red-breasted Sapsucker that first visited last fall had returned to his wells. We’ve been watching but we’d not seen him since he left last year until today. You can see the wells he drilled last year in this photo, they seem to be all dry and useless. It’s hard to tell so far if he is opening these up or drilling new ones. It’s sure fun to see him though!
I’m on the deck shooting, so I’m able to shoot basically at eyelevel with him. I’m shooting across the meadow so having to use the normal rig: D4s / 800mm w/TC-.25 on the Gitzo 5561SGT w/ Wimberley Head to get the shot. What was cool about shooting him this day, was it was literally cool, so cool it was snowing! Ya, the “rosie” whitish background is the background being diffused by the falling snow. Of course, that made for a soft wrap around light. It really brought down the light level so to stop the action and take advantage of that light, I raised my ISO, not my favorite solution. He turned out to be a great subject all weekend and I’m sure for the next couple of weeks. mtc