How I celebrated my 40th birthday

In the photo below I’m grinning because I’m listening to an absolute cacophony of redwing blackbird calls all around me. Dark feathers are darting around the cattails, mostly too quickly for me to even get a look at, much less snap a picture. But standing ankle-deep in freezing water (in double wool socks and muck boots, of course) and being surrounded by other beings going about their lives is absolutely one of my most joyful places.

This was actually the day before my birthday because the actual day was a work day, but my partner was good enough to snap a few photos of me in my element with my new camera gear setup, feeling happy. I wanted to have this photo so I’ll remember what I liked doing at 40. I’m hoping to keep doing it long into the future!

Scroll down to see some of the bird pics I captured that day and thank you for being a part of my birthday celebration!

Andrea smiling with a camera in a marsh. She’s got a brown coat & wool mitts, hat, and cowl, along with a grey backpack.

First, my winter Hiking Outfit

The woollies I’m wearing are Full Spectrum Toque, Botanical Sampler Cowl, and Double Rainbow Mitts, all from collaborations I’ve done with Catherine at Gauge Dye Works. The coat is Grainline Cascade Duffel Coat in wool/mohair/nylon coating from Blackbird, and those jeans you can barely see are my old trusty Ginger jeans I’ve had for years, denim also from Blackbird. Not pictured is my Seablush sweater in The Farmer’s Daughter Soka’pii under my coat, keeping my core nice and toasty.

Birds Blending in

I think it’s fascinating and beautiful how well some birds blend into their surroundings. Female redwing blackbirds tend to hide out down low in the cattails so I was excited this one was perching on top of one. Look how perfectly the colours in her feathers match the colours of the plants around her!

Female redwing blackbird perched on top of a cattail looking behind her. Her mottled brown feathers match the shades of the cattails she’s surrounded by.

Standing out

Males need to get noticed by females, so they don’t blend in at all. The fancier the better and when they’re really showing off, they contort their shoulders to display that red and orange patch. They can also hide it a bit if they’re trying to go unnoticed.

A male redwing blackbird clinging to a cattail is yelling, beak fully open & tail flared.

Aging

Younger males are pretty splotchy instead of being that rich black colour. Birds are like that a lot, so it’s fun to be able to tell when they’re juveniles and when they’re mature. The two below look like they’re halfway in between.

Two juvenile male redwing blackbirds with mottled feathers and bits of orange and red at their shoulders perch in a field of cattails.

Gallery

Here are a few more shots I got of them in their element. One thing I like to do with my nature photography is think about the whole environment, not just the one individual subject, but what the kind of land, water, and plants that support them. So hopefully you enjoy these cute poses and atmospheric vibes.

A male redwing blackbird is perfectly sideways like a rocket about to launch horizontally with his feet on a cattail.

A deep black male redwing blackbird holding onto a cattail while pulling fluff out of the top with his beak.

Blurred male redwing blackbird flying among cattails.

Juvenile male redwing blackbird in a blurry scene of brown cattails contorting his body to pull fluff off a cattail that he’s perched on.

A male redwing blackbird peeking out from behind a cattail with a cute little smile.

Gear& Settings

Feel free to skip over this if you’re not interested in nerdy camera stuff, but I love reading about it, so I’m including it for those of you like me since I just upgraded my kit.

Camera: Fujifilm XT5. I just upgraded from the XT2 and the subject-specific auto-focus seems pretty interesting and functional so far. There’s an autofocus setting just for birds so I set that up as part of my custom “Birds” preset.
Lens: I shot these with a new-to-me lens, the Fujinon XF 70-300mm 4-5.6 R LM OIS WR. For some of them I also used a 1.4 teleconverter to get more reach.
Settings:
- Shutter speed: Because it was a pretty cloudy and dark morning, I didn’t have a lot of light, so I opted to shoot at a slow shutter speed, mostly about 1/125. With burst mode, I was able to get a bunch of sharp photos in between the blurry ones and, as you can see above, I actually quite like some of the blurry ones artistically. I don’t think my lens really would have been able to capture sharp birds in flight with the light I had because without the teleconverter I can only stop down to F5.6 and with the teleconverter it’s F8, but maybe someday my skills will improve so I’ll be able to?
- Aperture: I kept the aperture as wide open as it would go to try to compensate for the low-ish light, but like I said before, this is a sweet portable lens, not a huge beast, so I sacrifice lower F-stop options.
- ISO: I usually leave this on auto, limited to 3600. I try to avoid graininess where possible, so letting it go higher than that just takes pictures I don’t like.
That backpack: I’ve had my eye on this for years, so I was delighted to find it on sale. It’s a Wandrd PRKVKE 21L. So far it’s very comfortable to carry and it’s got a very handy padded cube in the bottom that can be accessed via the side so I don’t actually have to put the bag down to get the camera out. It’s got a million other features too, but from my three times carrying it hiking so far, I’m a big fan.

Here’s to 2023

This year I’m looking forward to learning new things and getting into my creativity. I hope the same for you!

Last Chance for my Sale

If you’re reading this the day I post it, there are still a few hours left to take advantage of my biggest sale of the year. Use code

TURNING40

to get 33% off my indie patterns and ebooks here on my website and on Ravelry. Thanks for your support! Please share with a friend if you’ve got some knitters you think would like my work.

First Photo Shoot of the New Year