Peenie Wallie: Falcons Archives

July 10, 2010

Prairie Falcon

Above: Prairie Falcon (Falco mexicanus) near Larkspur, Colorado. Although the Prairie Falcon looks similar to the Peregrine Falcon, the facial "whiskers" on the Prairie Falcon are much more slender facial markings on the Peregrine Falcon. The bird has dark armpits which indicate it is a Prairie Falcon.

http://www.whatbird.com/forums/forums/ShowThread.aspx?PostID=168551#168551

Posted by Rob Kiser on July 10, 2010 at 11:20 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink

May 29, 2010

American Kestrel

Above: Female American Kestrel (Falco sparverius) in flight near Bear Creek Lake Park.

Posted by Rob Kiser on May 29, 2010 at 10:32 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink

April 7, 2010

American Kestrels

Above: Today, I was fortunate enough to shoot a breeding pair of American Kestrels (Falco sparverius) in a tree near Morrison, Colorado. The male has blue/gray colored wings and is noticeably smaller than the female, as seen above.

Above: The female stuck around for a bit longer than the male, allowing me a slightly better photo of her.

Categories: Photos, Birds, Falcons

Posted by Rob Kiser on April 7, 2010 at 3:07 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink

February 26, 2010

Canon Extender EF 1.4X II (Teleconverter)

My new toy came today via UPS. Woohoo! I'm going to try to get some shots of owlie when I go to pick up Jennifer today. Hopefully, I'll get better shots of owlie. We'll see.

I'm trying to get some rough depth-of-field calculations, this is always tricky with smaller-than-full-frame sensors. My sensor has a 1.6X "crop factor". But the lens is a 100mm - 400mm L-series lens designed for a full frame sensor. You can tell this silly DOF calculator that you're shooting a Canon EOS 50D, so it knows to accomodate for the 1.6X "crop factor", but then there are two different types of lenses you can use for this frame, the EF, and the EFS. The EFS lenses are designed for the smaller sensor, the EF lenses are not. So, this is sort of a crap shoot.

Update: So, the autofocus doesn't work at all with the extender. I had thought that this might be a possibility. Not very convenient, but I figured I should be able to manually focus my camera, although I readily admit it's not something I have a lot of practice with.

Update: I tricked the camera and now the autofocus works. :)

Above: Great-horned Owl (Bubo virginianus).

Above: The American Kestrel (Falco sparverius).

Categories: Photos, Birds, Owls, Falcons

Posted by Rob Kiser on February 26, 2010 at 2:21 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink

January 14, 2010

American Kestrel (Female)

Above: Female American Kestrel (Falco sparverius) near Littleton, Colorado.

Categories: Photos, Birds, Falcons

Posted by Rob Kiser on January 14, 2010 at 8:11 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink

American Kestrel (Male)

Above: Male American Kestrel (Falco sparverius) near Lakewood, Colorado.

Categories: Photos, Birds, Falcons

Posted by Rob Kiser on January 14, 2010 at 6:49 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink

January 13, 2010

American Kestrel

Above: I spotted this American Kestrel (Falco sparverius) this morning near Morrison, Colorado. I've tentatively identified it as a female due to multiple black bands across the tail. Update from: WhatBird.com - She's a she:

"This is a female. Note the blurry rufous chest barring vs. definite black chest spots." and "The more obvious mark is that the male has blue wings rather than the black striped rufous ones on these birds. Also, along with the difference in the markings on the underside, the back of the male lacks the stripes, and instead has more sparse black chevrons near the rear of his back."

Previous American Kestrel photo.

Categories: Photos, Birds, Falcons

Continue reading "American Kestrel"

Posted by Rob Kiser on January 13, 2010 at 10:11 AM : Comments (0) | Permalink