You are all so helpful. I got some wonderful responses about the strange
Chickadees that sometimes frequent my feeder. I believe there are two of
them and they visit just a few times a month. Of all the answers and
inquiries I got, I believe the common wisdom among the group is that these
are Partially Leucistic Chickadees. Jen Sanford sent me this helpful link I
thought I'd share:



http://birding.about.com/od/identifyingbirds/ig/Pictures-of-Leucistic-Birds/
Leucistic-Chickadee.htm



If you are curious to see my latest photos on these darling little mutants
you can click here: http://snazel.com/cheztweet/display.asp?sp=LBCC



Thank you again to everyone for your help!



I regret I have been painfully busy with very long work days and nights. I
do spend a good 30 minutes every morning watching my feeder and trying out
my new camera. Alas, it's the only time I've had to watch birds and
photograph them. I believe I am improving! Here is one of my recent
favorites: http://snazel.com/cheztweet/display.asp?id=67



The fellow in that photo dropped one of his colorful feathers, which I now
have on my desk, nice memento!



I am having some issues creating decent contrast. Any tips here? I tend to
set the ISO at around 400 to 500, the F-Stop comes in usually at F8 or F7.1
and the shutter speed around 1/500th to 1/1000th. I still, at times get kind
of a "washed out" look with just not enough contrast. Should I knock the
F-stop down a notch and let in less light? Should I knock the shutter speed
slightly higher to let in less light? Any tips here?



I don't have much to share with you in terms of recent sightings. I did see
what I believe was my first Pileated Woodpecker. He was huge! He was pretty
far away and partially covered by leaves/branches in the foreground. I got a
very decent look in the binoculars, but it was too difficult to photograph
(also I didn't want to put the binoculars down, I'd never seen one before).



I also spotted two Western Tanagers up very high in a backyard tree. I'd
never seen two together before. Are they migrating right now? They did not
come to our feeder, but seemed to adore one of our trees and hung out there
for hours, before flying off. If they come around at all again, I really
want to get a photograph, because they are gorgeous!



My friendly, local Cooper's Hawk (thank you to all of you who helped me
confirm earlier that's what he was), still visits. He does not come by every
day, but he once a week or so, he shows up in the morning and takes a long
survey of my backyard and feeders. I've seen him swoop in a few times. What
I find odd, is he swoops in when there's a very large number of finches. Odd
only, in that I heard he prefers to chase Jays and Flickers. He seems to
swoop in ahead of the feeders, as if anticipating where the finches will
flee to, then he holds out his talons in hopes of "catching" one as they fly
away. Is this normal? Seems like a weird way to catch dinner! He never stays
long when he tries this and it all happens in an instant. No birds hit our
feeders after the attack for a good long time afterward! It happens, like I
say, only once or twice a week. I hope to get more photographs of this
fellow soon, as he appears to be a fairly regular visitor now!



- Douglas, West Seattle

- douglas at snazel.com

- http://snazel.com/cheztweet