Photographer Captures Gorgeous Bird Photos in Her Own Backyard

During the spring and summer of 2021, I did not do a lot of photography in places other than my backyard. I have always spent some time photographing birds in my yard, with my favorite subject being the blue jay.

Blue jays are a common backyard bird found in eastern and parts of central North America. They are smart, fun to watch, and very pretty. What is even more amazing is that they are not really blue. The pigment in blue jay feathers is brown melanin and we see them as blue because of a phenomenon called light scattering. Blue pigment in nature is rare. The Beginning of My Blue Jay Photos
It all started in March with a few blue jays on the wires outside my upstairs window and a few shelled peanuts. Throwing some peanuts out the window to them and watching them dive down for them, I decided that I wanted to be able to get photos of them flying. A pair of red-bellied woodpeckers also joined in on snatching the peanuts.

I started out photographing from the window until I knew they were comfortable with me. When they started to snatch the peanuts off the window sill with me sitting there I knew I could try it outside so I was not always looking down on them.