A bird in the ...

© harrington

Guess who needs more practice mastering depth of field and point of focus? I think these are house finches to the left wearing red (red, left, fits). Other options would be pine grosbeaks or purple finches. My bird identification skills are about as good as my photography skills. On the other hand, I do know that's a gold finch on the right and the red bellied woodpecker picture wasn't bad. This time, I thought that the camera was focused on the two birds, but the camera was determined to outwit me and chose the branch in front of them as a point of focus. These are two more of those things where, the harder I have to work to get it right, the more I'm determined to do so: photography and bird identification. When I was spending more time fishing, and not catching, I never did sort out whether I was fishing in the right place but the wrong way or the right way in the wrong place, or both and other. I mean when I know somethings not working, that's often all I know. Then I have to decide: should I move, try something different,  move and try something different? The fish and I rarely read the same books. Now it turns out, neither do the birds and I. They know who they are and probably don't care one whit whether I know who they are or not. So, they don't assume the same poses as my bird identification resources. The good news is that many neighborhood birds, as I noted yesterday, arrived at the feeders in an abundance of beauty and copious variety, thanks to the snow storm and the mixture of old fields, forests and wetlands in my their our neighborhood. Taking even out-of-focus pictures of birds in a snow storm is more fun than contemplating blowing the snow after the storm. Don't you agree?