Catching the Light on Bluebird Lane

Who else here lives on a street named Bluebird Lane?  For years I paid no attention to the name of our street on the Tennessee River.  After all, we don't get any mail there.  I soon found out that it lives up to its name, thanks to a few bluebird boxes the owners of the marina scattered around.

Now, this is not a particularly good time a year to take songbird photos.  They aren't very active, like in the spring, for one thing.  Mainly, though, they are hard to see when leaves are out.  Even when you can see them, it is hard to get a clear view through a camera lens, because even with a big zoom, getting a photo of birds is like threading a needle through the leaves.  The exception of course is if you have a bird feeder, but I don't take advantage of that.  After all, then getting photos of birds would be no challenge.

Another issue is even if a bird lands in a tree, and you can get a clear view of it through a camera lens, often the shade is too dense to get a good photo.  All I can say is, sans a bird feeder, a photographer has to be extremely lucky and persistent to get really good photos of birds this time of year.  

I found a favorite place on a branch not too far from our front porch. Still, I had to use the full zoom of my new camera. Now this is a pretty decent photo of a bird grooming herself. And she sure needed grooming.
  

 
While the first photo was completely shady, there were hints of some filtered sun coming through the leaves.  Rare!  Lucky!  Here is mom with a juvenile member of the bluebird family.  The juvenile bluebird does not yet have the red breast, but is still spotted. Mom continued having a bad feather day.

 

 And for perfect bluebird natural lighting, it came later when the two birds were having a heated conversation.  The light is filtered, shining on the birds, but not much in the background, and the background is green leaves!  Notice the difference the light makes from the first photo.

Later I got a photo of a bluebird that illustrate the principles of both "backlit" (photographer facing the light source), and negative space!  I didn't purposely look for such a shot, but this was pretty natural with the Tennessee River in the background. 

Bluebird Lane is no misnomer!