...then I found a most friendly and relatively fearless Pileated Woodpecker frequenting my feeders and I kept on my obsessive shooting ways, which added a few new photos to the mix.
In the end, after a great deal of consideration, re-editing, and mulling things over, here are the 10 shots I decided to submit to the Audubon Society:
Barred Owl (A sentimental favorite of mine)
Bittern's Lunch (Of the entire series, my favorite due to the fantastic view of the frog)
Heron in Flight (This shot goes to show how much you can change the mood of an image with a little cropping)
Dancing Crow (I truly think crows are overlooked as being so common, but they are such amazingly clever creatures, they are a joy to watch)
Baby Juncos (Can't. Resist. Cute. Fluffy.)
Vacationing (Juvenile Yellow Crowned Night Heron - I love his piercing red eye)
Pileated Photobomb - (The angle of this shot will forever crack me up - "whatcha doin? Oh, is that a camrea?")
Keeping a Watchful Eye (Woody - the male - watches across the yard while Wilma - the female - grooms her feathers)
Curious Pileated (This is Jr. He would often pause from eating to watch me and my camera lens, then go back to eating)
Mother's Nest - (Red billed streamertail female on her nest in the gardens of a resort in Jamaica. The nest is completely out in the open in a high traffic part of the garden, yet tough to see if she is not sitting on it - I was actually standing on the walking path outside the hotel's kitchen... that brown wall in the background is the door to the office.)
This project has helped me to realize just how many bird photos I've managed to collect over the years... I am now contemplating making my 2013 calendar entirely out of bird photos. Hell, I could probably make an entire calendar just on pileated shots!
