Tag: house finch

Wednesday (16-September-2020) — New Jersey

Summertime Backyard Nature in New Jersey.

While out mowing the yard, one of the Trolls guarded a Mushroom growing in the backyard. After mowing, I cleared some of the invasive “mile-a-minute” vines, and came across a Praying Mantis. I tried to move it to safety, and if female hope it is able to lay eggs for next year.

Troll guarding a Mushroom. (David J Mathre)
Troll guarding a Mushroom while I mow the lawn. Image taken with a Leica SL2 camera and 24-90 mm lens. (David J Mathre)
Praying Mantis. (David J Mathre)
Praying Mantis. Image taken with a Nikon N1V3 camera and 70-300 mm VR lens. (David J Mathre)

Afternoon at the Birdfeeders: Mourning Dove, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Blue Jay, Black-capped Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, Gray Catbird, House Finch, American Goldfinch, Song Sparrow, Northern Cardinal, and Rose-breasted Grosbeak.


Afternoon at the Birdfeeders. Individual images in the slideshow are available in my PhotoShelter Gallery.

Contact me if you are interested in a Time-lapse Video of the Afternoon session at the Birdfeeders. My setup for the birdfeeder images is a Nikon D850 camera and 200 mm f/2 VR lens set to take one image every 5 seconds over a 5 hour period (~3600 images). The new time-lapse video format is 720p (1080 x 720 pixels) and 1 frame/second. The length of the video is about 1 hour in a 1 GB MP4 file. The previous time-lapse videos of the birdfeeders were at 12 frames/second, and to be honest were too fast to identify the birds.

Daily Electric Energy Used (41.0 kWh) from Sense. Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (47.2 kWh) from Sense and SolSystems. More sun. A surplus of 6.2 kWh.

Monday (14-September-2020) — New Jersey

Summertime Backyard Nature in New Jersey.

Morning at the Birdfeeders: Mourning Dove, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Blue Jay, Black-capped Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, Gray Catbird, House Finch, Song Sparrow, Northern Cardinal, and Rose-breasted Grosbeak.


Morning at the Birdfeeders. Individual images in the slideshow are available in my PhotoShelter Gallery.

Contact me if you are interested in a Time-lapse Video of the Morning session at the Birdfeeders. My setup for the birdfeeder images is a Nikon D850 camera and 200 mm f/2 VR lens set to take one image every 5 seconds over a 5 hour period (~3600 images). The new time-lapse video format is 720p (1080 x 720 pixels) and 1 frame/second. The length of the video is about 1 hour in a 1 GB MP4 file. The previous time-lapse videos of the birdfeeders were at 12 frames/second, and to be honest were too fast to identify the birds.

Out on the patio, I planted some Garlic for next spring and watered the Grow Towers. Theta Z1 Camera set to record images using program auto mode (shutter, aperture, white-balance, JPG + RAW (DNG) every 10 seconds. Camera mounted on a tripod just above head level. The camera collected ~ 360 images (~ 1 hour) before running out of internal storage space. The DNG dual fisheye images were processed with Capture One Pro, saved in TIF format. Then converted to 360 degree equirectangular pano images with PTGUI (batch process). The Little Planet time-lapse video was created using PhotoShop CC (image converted to 1:1 format (7430 x 7430), rotated 180 degrees, converted to polar coordinates, then exported as a MP4 video (1920 x 1920, 10p). Rotation to the video was added using Premiere Pro.

Daily Electric Energy Used (48.6 kWh) from Sense. Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (51.5 kWh) from Sense and SolSystems. Lots of clouds. A surplus of 2.9 kWh.

Wednesday (09-September-2020) — New Jersey

Summertime Backyard Nature in New Jersey.

Early morning (06:35) neighborhood cat hunting under the birdfeeder.


Early Morning Neighborhood Cat Hunting Under the Birdfeeder. Individual images in the slideshow are available in my PhotoShelter Gallery.

Morning at the Birdfeeders: Mourning Dove, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Downy Woodpecker, Blue Jay, Black-capped Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, Gray Catbird, House Finch, Song Sparrow, and Northern Cardinal.


Morning at the Birdfeeders. Individual images in the slideshow are available in my PhotoShelter Gallery.

Afternoon at the Birdfeeders: Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Blue Jay, Gray Catbird, Song Sparrow, and Northern Cardinal.


Afternoon at the Birdfeeders. Individual images in the slideshow are available in my PhotoShelter Gallery.

Contact me if you are interested in a Time-lapse Video of the Morning or Afternoon session at the Birdfeeders. My setup for the birdfeeder images is a Nikon D850 camera and 200 mm f/2 VR lens set to take one image every 5 seconds over a 5 hour period (~3600 images). The new time-lapse video format is 720p (1080 x 720 pixels) and 1 frame/second. The length of the video is about 1 hour in a 1 GB MP4 file. The previous time-lapse videos of the birdfeeders were at 12 frames/second, and to be honest were too fast to identify the birds.

Daily Electric Energy Used (54.2 kWh) from Sense. Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (35.1 kWh) from Sense and SolSystems. Lots of clouds. A deficit of 19.1 kWh.

Tuesday (08-September-2020) — New Jersey

Summertime Backyard Nature in New Jersey.

Morning at the Birdfeeders: Mourning Dove, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Blue Jay, Black-capped Chickadee, Gray Catbird, House Finch, Chipping Sparrow, Song Sparrow, Baltimore Oriole, and Northern Cardinal. The Baltimore Oriole likes fruit and is pretty aggressive — willing to stare down Blue Jay’s and Gray Catbirds.


Morning at the Birdfeeders. Individual images in the slideshow are available in my PhotoShelter Gallery. <


Bonus — Female/Immature Baltimore Oriole. Individual images in the slideshow are available in my PhotoShelter Gallery.

Afternoon at the Birdfeeders: Mourning Dove, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Blue Jay, Black-capped Chickadee, Gray Catbird, House Finch, Chipping Sparrow, Song Sparrow, Baltimore Oriole, and Northern Cardinal.

For the afternoon session (and all future sessions) I added a white card for focus, exposure, and white balance. During these multi-hour sessions the light at the birdfeeders can go from bright to rather dark and direct sunlight to cloudy to shade. I have the camera set to manual for aperture (f/8) and shutter-speed (1/400 sec) with the ISO automatically adjusted for the brightness on the white card. The white card also allows me to adjust the white balance for the lighting conditions at the birdfeeder — not the full image including the background which may have different lighting conditions.


Afternoon at the Birdfeeders. Individual images in the slideshow are available in my PhotoShelter Gallery.

Contact me if you are interested in a Time-lapse Video of the Morning or Afternoon session at the Birdfeeders. My setup for the birdfeeder images is a Nikon D850 camera and 200 mm f/2 VR lens set to take one image every 5 seconds over a 5 hour period (~3600 images). The new time-lapse video format is 720p (1080 x 720 pixels) and 1 frame/second. The length of the video is about 1 hour in a 1 GB MP4 file. The previous time-lapse videos of the birdfeeders were at 12 frames/second, and to be honest were too fast to identify the birds.

I also set the Ricoh Theta Z1 camera up in the patio to take images every 2 minutes for a daytime time-Lapse video. Shown as a 360 x 180 degree Equirectangular Panorama and as a 360 Degree Little Planet Panorama. I’m not sure why I have a black line artifact in the Little Planet view. I’m also still optimizing the workflow for processing the images to create these Time-Lapse videos.

Daily Electric Energy Used (55.2 kWh) from Sense. Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (57.3 kWh) from Sense and SolSystems. More Sun. A surplus of 2.1 kWh.

Sunday (06-September-2020) — New Jersey

Summertime Backyard Nature in New Jersey.

Morning at the Birdfeeders: Mourning Dove, Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Blue Jay, Black-capped Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, Gray Catbird, House Finch, American Goldfinch, Song Sparrow, and Northern Cardinal.


Morning at the Birdfeeders. Individual images in the slideshow are available in my PhotoShelter Gallery.

Contact me if you are interested in a Time-lapse Video of the Morning at the Birdfeeders. My setup for the birdfeeder images is a Nikon D850 camera and 200 mm f/2 VR lens set to take one image every 5 seconds over a 5 hour period (~3600 images). The new time-lapse video format is 720p (1080 x 720 pixels) and 1 frame/second. The length of the video is about 1 hour in a 1 GB MP4 file. The previous time-lapse videos of the birdfeeders were at 12 frames/second, and to be honest were too fast to identify the birds.

Later in the evening, a male Baltimore Oriole showed up to feed on the grapes.


Male Baltimore Oriole at the Birdfeeder. Individual images in the slideshow are available in my PhotoShelter Gallery.

Daily Electric Energy Used (46.9 kWh) from Sense. Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (59.6 kWh) from Sense and SolSystems. More Sun. A surplus of 12.7 kWh.

Weekly Electric Energy Used (351 kWh) from Sense. Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (318 kWh) from Sense and SolSystems. A deficit of 33 kWh.