Photographic Adjustments give me the Creepers

Yesterday at lunch I headed to one of my favorite walking sections along the Coal Creek Trail here in Louisville, Colorado. One of the highlights was watching four Red-tail Hawks circling up in the distance on a shared thermal. Then I got down to business as I heard and then watched two Brown Creepers working over a few tree trunks in the area.

I had carefully adjusted my camera settings to minimize noise, and hopefully to compensate for the bright sunlight angled towards my targeted Creepers, so I began to shoot. I even made a couple of minor tweaks to EV levels and ISO settings as the birds worked their way more directly into the path of the sun.

I got a chance to look at them on the monitor later, and found that these constantly moving little camouflage experts were moving a hair to fast for the camera's shutter speed, and as a result lost the clarity I had hoped for.

That is not to say that I am completely unhappy with the shots I got. Just finding this species is a treat, and this time I can say that I definitely recognized it by its voice first and then its movement. I can't claim that I knew the call was Brown Creeper, but I knew it was distinct and dialed in on the area from which it originated. It is nice to have these sightings in the winter and around a known location. If I can keep up the encounters it will really help for the more evergreen environments where they are common up at higher elevations.

As for the photography I'll just keep hammering away, please bear with me as I continue to break down the comfort zone cushion.