Magnolia Warbler
There was a misty drizzle all morning, with rain forecasted for every day this week. It's prime time for warblers to be coming through the area, and this rain couldn't have come at a worse time for birding. But I didn't want to be house bound, so I ventured out with my camera and opaque rain cover that I could remove for a few shots if I saw some birds. My Canon camera body and lens are supposed to be water resistant, but it's a big investment to lose if either gets ruined in the rain. After a short hike, I realized that it was drizzling too much to risk my camera and lens, so I decided to try another tactic.
Several years ago, I purchased a rather expensive, heavy plastic and transparent rain hood with an optical glass window for my Canon camera and lens. Its' a pain to put on, and difficult to work with camera settings in the field. I suppose that it might work okay for landscapes and easy subjects, but bird photoraphy is a challenge under the best of circumstances, and I never have had much success with this rain cover. I decided to try again, but this time used an older Canon camera body and lens. If it worked okay, I would just leave the rain cover attached to this equipment for future rainy days. So I went out, and once again, determined that making quick camera setting adjustments was almost impossible, and I had to rely on automatic camera settings. I came across a small flock of warblers, and took almost 100 shots, but only got a few that were barely usable. One of the warblers was a Magnolia, and the other one was a Bay-breasted. Terrible photos, but the Bay-breasted was a new Old Trail species for me (# 129).
Magnolia Warbler
Bay-breasted Warbler
Well, that didn't work out very well. So I decided to try another option. This time I took off the transparent rain cover, and got my opaque rain cover to use with my older camera equipment. If it was raining hard, the birds wouldnlt be out. Under light drizzle, I would take my chances with the water resistant properties of this older equipment. I went back to where I had seen the small warbler flock, and was able to locate one of the Magnolia Warblers. Even with light drizzle, the shots came out okay. For the camera buffs reading this, one of the following shots was at ISO 8000, and the rest were at ISO 10,000 to ISO 16,000.
Magnolia Warbler
Magnolia Warbler
Magnolia Warbler
Magnolia Warbler
Magnolia Warbler
Magnolia Warbler
Magnolia Warbler
Magnolia Warbler
Magnolia Warbler
Magnolia Warbler
No rain would be even better!