I had two chances to get pictures of Ruby-crowned Kinglets at Bois-de-l'Île-Bizard Nature Park. The first time I was unsuccessful. I got close looks, they actually seemed somewhat curious of me as they took turns flying into a path-side tree just next to me. But with them in near constant motion and with sluggish focusing because of the heavy overcast all the pictures were blurry or I shot too late.The second time I had more success, but still had to fight bad lighting. Not only heavy overcast, but bright gray clouds in the background.If you look closely at the lower image, you will notice a touch of red on its crown. Also, notice that the light is shining through its toes. An indication of just how small these birds are.
This is one of those images that isn't very good technically, but I was excited enough about it and the bird was fairly new for me that I wanted to post it anyway. It is the only image of the Kinglet that I took that was is in reasonably focus and it took quite a bit of post processing to clean it up. I confused as to what it was, but the little bit of red that you can see on its crown in this image led me to identify it. It was a difficult to shot as it was actually below me along the banks of the Willamette River in Wilsonville Memorial Park. I regularly check this spot as it seems to be a favorite of small birds, but it can be difficult to shot as you are looking down about 15 feet to the waters edge. I was using the rented 400mm lens on the monopod and wasn't quite sure how to point it down at first, but found if I straddled it like a stick pony it worked quite well.
I had two chances to get pictures of Ruby-crowned Kinglets at Bois-de-l'Île-Bizard Nature Park. The first time I was unsuccessful. I got close looks, they actually seemed somewhat curious of me as they took turns flying into a path-side tree just next to me. But with them in near constant motion and with sluggish focusing because of the heavy overcast all the pictures were blurry or I shot too late.
