Day 59: That Is Not a Tree
2026-04-06
Hello! This is from the backyard of my home, where I'm planting wildflowers and watching tulips bloom from the bulbs I placed last summer. It's a beautiful time of year.
No backyard is complete without a bird feeder, so I looked online for reviews and found this one that seems easy enough to clean. With a mix of black oil sunflower and millet, it only took a few weeks for birds to show up.
It only took a few more weeks for the squirrels to show up, but I have plenty of seed to last the next few months, so I'm not too worried. So long as they're not eating or breaking the plants.
This woodpecker (and others like it, I bet) has been drumming the trees for food for years, and I've never seen one in-person before. Feeding the birds was actually the first time I've seen a woodpecker up close, and they're gorgeous. Smaller than I expected, but still gorgeous.
Unfortunately, I'm not a bird nerd. I've used Cornell Lab's Merlin Bird ID before, but uninstalled the app after I realized I wasn't using it more than monthly. Photographing birds is a never-ending challenge — it seems like everyone starts with the common birds that look like black blobs, saving the odd colorful few, and then dreaming of rarer birds in faraway locations. Even once the professional bird photographers have captured a stunning bunch of shots in Costa Rica, the standard moves up to finding birds doing specific poses, or running specific actions.
Meanwhile, I'm just glad I can associate the echoey tapping noise of a woodpecker's hunt with this fella in my backyard.
The rain has been on and off these past few days, but I'm still taking photos and experimenting with my camera. I don't know if it's because I have more free time than the next person or if I just tend to prioritize photography over doing my actual work, but I'm doing well out in the field.
Finally, it's cool to be offline. There are quite a few things you can do without Internet. In fact, go outside (especially if it's dark or rainy) and take photos!
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Cheers,
David
Technical info, for nerds
- Camera: Nikon D7200
- Lens: Tamron AF 70-300mm F/4-5.6 Di LD Macro
- Focal length: 105mm
- Exposure: 1/640 sec shutter speed, f/4 aperture, ISO 250
- Edited with: Affinity