Just Flocking Through

Here in North Central Texas we get many types of birds stopping by for a bit on their way South and back North. Our house sits on the top of a hill on a wooded acre, so we get to admire a lot of wild life as it passes through or makes our lot as a temporary home.

It has been fun over the years and I have collected many photos of Raccoon in the trees, Rabbits from my gardens, Bull Frogs from the pond and many types of butterflies. This past Spring we saw migrations of many birds. Robins, Chickadees, Cedar Waxwings as well as our resident Cardinals and Blue Birds.

One morning I manged to capture this male Cardinal as he was noisily tweeting up a storm in the early morning sun. Glad I had my 20x zoom on my Sony. With all the noise he was making it seemed as if he was much closer though.

I took these three photos and a few more of some other migrating flocks of various birds and moodied them up with one of my favorite textures, Bluetopia, which can be found at one of my favorite sites: http://shadowhousecreations.blogspot.com/

And sometimes I will take the textures I want to use and change the color or hue of it to suit my needs. This one is Bluetopia in green:

I added these textures layers to my photos. In some cases I had to photo retouch to get more birdies in the shot. I just couldn't get them to sit still for me! Here are the final shots.

On these two Robins I changed up the hue of Bluetopia to more of a sepia toned texture. I played around with the blues and greens and this sepia seemed to work the best with the Robin's red breast and the tone of the twigs. I did a little burn around the edges to soften the look to a more Shabby Chic look!

These two little Lovey Doves are kind of peachy colored with the Bluetopia texture in a moody turquoise green hue. The dove was actually one bird the jumped around on the branches of the tree and I took its picture. I merged two of the images together to make it look like love doves sitting together in the morning light. The magic of digital....

These Cedar Waxwings came through our yard and spent a few days. Noisy, messy and fun to watch. They perched high up in the tree tops to get the very first warming rays of the sun in the morning and again in the evening to get the very last bits of sun rays at the end of each day. Beautiful birds almost lime green with a bit of orange stripe on their wings.

And finally that noisy Cardinal calling in at the top of the three in the morning sunlight. He, or his family can be seen all during the year. I like that he sticks around. I used Bluetopia in a lovely moody blue indigo color for this one.

These images and others are for sale in my online store at http://www.etsy.com/shop/CatinoCreations?section_id=11213799

I am still trying to capture a Barn Owl that likes to hang out in the woods close by. I got one shot of him, but there were too many branches in the way for me to make some beautiful art out of him...

And now that I think about it I do have some other birds of prey photos that I should try to do something with. An Osprey and a Red Tip Hawk. I'll play around with them when I am in an adventurous mood.
Until the next adventure...Look up in the tree tops. You might capture something in the sunlight! ~Michele