This weekend I had the good fortune to spend time shooting with Matthew Studebaker – one of the best songbird photographers. You can see Matthew’s work here. Matthew is particularly great at getting beautiful songbirds, especially warblers, in beautiful settings. Today began wet, but with a vibrant sun as you can tell from this singing Bobolink.
Bobolink
The dew quickly evaporated, leaving us with a bright sunny day. The insects were everywhere and that brought out the birds to feed. One biological trait that is taught quickly is that animals tend to have a slower metabolism at larger size. So an elephant has one of the slowest metabolisms around. But this Blue-gray Gnatcatcher is on the other end of the spectrum – tiny but bouncing around everywhere. It was singing its tiny heart out to all who would listen.
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
The bird of the day had to be this gorgeous Indigo Bunting. I learned tons from Matthew, both about the birds as well as how to approach photographing songbirds. On top of all that, Matthew is a great guy and a pleasure to be around. He’s based out of the Cleveland area and does a lot of his photography in Ohio, Michigan, and Alaska.
Indigo Bunting