Indigo bunting for my 2022 bird calendar

May 28, 2021 Hal

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I’ve been mesmerized by indigo buntings for years, but I’ve never been able to get a good photo of them, in part because I never had a long enough lens. So, I’ve been on a mission this spring! The other day I went to a local trail where I thought they may be. Yep, I saw several flitting about, but these little buggers don’t sit still for long and they are very skittish. I paused and pulled out my Merlin app and began calling them. One circled about me for a few minutes lighting on various branches 20-30 feet away. These birds are so small, even with a 600mm lens they fill a small portion of the frame. The light level was low so I had to put my ISO on 2000 just to get a decent shutter speed at f6.3.
I was leaning on image #2 until today when I shot image #4. So. unless I can capture a better image in the next few weeks it looks like #4 it is. Off I go…

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