Teleconverter and Birds

It was a pretty dark and cloudy day, probably not the best for going out and playing with my 1.4x telecoverter. But, I wanted to get outside, so I decided to try it out anyway. It proved pretty difficult to get crisp, in-focus photos, in part because of the lack of light. I was also using railings or my car door to brace the camera, when I should really use a tripod with the telecoverter on. Still, I thought I would share some of my results. The photo on the left is of some American wigeon at False Bay. There was also at least one Eurasian wigeon among the flock, shown here in the smaller photo. The Eurasian wigeon is by no means a common bird, but I see it much more frequently than any other Eurasian rarities. You can differentiate the male Eurasian from the American wigeon by the dark cinnamon color cheeks and head with a tan forehead, as opposed to a green and gray head with a white forehead. It was pretty far away, so the photo of the Eurasian isn't the best, but I wanted to share it just because its such an uncommon species to see.

This is actually probably my favorite shot of the day. It's a nice silhouette of a crow, and the sunshine barely peeking through below the clouds along the horizon adds a little hint of color to the sky:

Here is a belted kingfisher photo taken from our front porch. You can tell its a female by the cinnamon belly band, whereas the male just has the blue chest band. This is one of the few bird species in which the female is more colorful than the male. There is a local pair of kingfishers that often chitter their way through our marina, but rarely do they stay still long enough to give me any good photographic opportunities. She sat still for a while, but was still pretty far away, so evne with the teleconverter I had to crop this photo.

Finally, here's a photo of a red-tailed hawk. You can imagine how much better this photo would have been had it been a brighter day. I took this picture around 2:30, and it already seemed like dusk! Still, you can make out the reddish tail feather, which I think is kind of cool.

I guess I'll have to wait for another brighter day, use my tripod, and then try it again!