{"id":2332,"date":"2014-04-08T12:28:58","date_gmt":"2014-04-08T16:28:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gorga.org\/blog\/?p=2332"},"modified":"2014-04-08T12:28:58","modified_gmt":"2014-04-08T16:28:58","slug":"signs-of-spring-finally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gorga.org\/blog\/?p=2332","title":{"rendered":"Signs of Spring… Finally"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spring is very slowly coming to our neck of the woods. The snow is getting patchy and the lake is beginning to thaw around the edges. I saw a bufflehead in the small patch of open water near the bridge this morning and there have been Canada Geese in the same spot over the past week or so.<\/span><\/p>\n

The other morning at breakfast we noticed two mourning doves “interacting” atop the large rock just off the deck. I made some photos from inside the house but, as one might expect, the quality\u00a0though two layers of glass is not great.<\/p>\n

Over the past few \u00a0days we have noticed juncos on the ground by the feeder and robins in the yard. There were also purple finches at the feeder; coming and going among all year round residents.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, I spent some time practicing with “Big Bertha” (i.e. the 600 mm f\/4 lens) again. I set up a downed pine branch as a perch about a foot from the feeder and a chair roughly twenty feet away (Bertha”s close focus distance is about 6 meters). By the time I got the camera set up on the tripod the birds were already using the perch and I was good to go.<\/p>\n

Here are the results:<\/p>\n\n\t\t