Juvenile Goldfinch

Gallery: AvianPosted September 10, 2017243 views9 comments

Our Goldfinch horde has produced a whole lot of youngsters this year and they're hitting the thistle feeders like crazy. I recently purchased Alan Murphy's ebook on Songbird Set-up Photography and he talks about using cheap tripods with hollow handles as mounts for decorative perches. He also mentioned using teasel baited with a bit of thistle for getting Goldfinches to perch on them. I don't have any teasel but this Monarda head looked like it would make a good substitute. I put the setup in with the rest of the feeders, set up my tripod and three-legged stool and waited 10-15 minutes for the birds to come back and find the perch. Several perched on the stem, which I had cut a bit too short, so I couldn't eliminate the base, but this one finally landed on the seed head and proceeded to remove all the thistle in pretty short order. The background is senesced grass in the yard.

7Dii, Sigma 150-600 C @ 562 mm, Tripod with ballhead and Sidekick, f/9, 1/500, iso 800, aperture priority, pattern metering. Processed in LR & PS CC. Cropped to 15.8 MP (arbitrary proportions) before resizing. Taken at 9:22 am today with the sun popping in and out of the clouds.

Your comments and critiques are greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Comments

9 comments

Comment posted by Dennis Plank on September 10, 2017 at 5:56 PM

Here's a shot of the mounting system for the seed head.

Registered on January 28, 2008, 1767 Posts, 23192 Comments

Comment posted by Dennis Plank on September 10, 2017 at 5:58 PM

And here's one of one of the four feeders hanging from a cross-bar. There were also goldfinches all through the garden and trees at the time.

Registered on January 28, 2008, 1767 Posts, 23192 Comments

Comment posted by Nate Chappell on September 10, 2017 at 6:16 PM

Beautiful shot Dennis, love how he is investigating the seedhead. devil

Registered on February 1, 2006, 1158 Posts, 19528 Comments

Comment posted by Brian Murphy on September 10, 2017 at 9:22 PM

Beautiful Dennis, I especially like the background. You have quite an ingenious way to hold on to the thistle.
Thanks for sharing.

Registered on November 15, 2015, 35 Posts, 50 Comments

Comment posted by Kurt Bowman on September 12, 2017 at 12:12 AM

Nice work Dennis and good setup you have there.

Registered on June 19, 2008, 1005 Posts, 8028 Comments

Comment posted by David Schoen on September 12, 2017 at 1:06 PM

I like the simplicity of this image along with a contrast between textures of the Monarda head and the plumage. Nice background. You definitely have a horde of juvenile Goldfinches.

Registered on November 6, 2006, 1213 Posts, 4587 Comments

Comment posted by Richard Ditch on September 12, 2017 at 9:48 PM

Interesting soft and delicate color palette.

Thanks for the added overview photos - always nice to peek behind the curtain. You must be going through a lot of thistle seed. It took less than a day for Lesser Goldfinches to find our thistle feeder after we put it out and since then we have goldfinches in the yard and the nearby trees every day. They had to already be in the neighborhood but never visited until we put out thistle for them.

Registered on November 1, 2003, 1031 Posts, 12705 Comments

Comment posted by Craig Moreau on September 13, 2017 at 4:03 PM

Dennis, this is very nice. The color palette is very calm, and I love how the bird is looking at the seed head. Good look behind the scenes too, thanks for the insight!

Registered on April 21, 2015, 64 Posts, 584 Comments

Comment posted by Barbara Graham on September 14, 2017 at 9:48 PM

The detail and color is beautiful, and I love the way the bird is looking at the thistle. I also really, really liked seeing behind the scenes.

Registered on July 27, 2010, 1310 Posts, 5035 Comments