Trying to Get The Best Photo of a Jay | Winter Bird Photography

Today I've headed to a local park in Salt Lake City in hopes of photographing some birds and specifically trying to get a really good photograph of the Woodhouse's scrub jay, a beautiful dusky blue and gray bird that I've wanted a picture of for a few weeks. If you've never been, Salt Lake is a beautiful city and the mountains jutting right up against our parks and homes is just gorgeous and offer the perfect backdrop for this adventure. This park winds its way around just the foothill area of these mountains and has a good amount of species. And so one winter morning I headed out to this park in hopes of photographing birds and like the intro said I was specifically targeting the Woodhouse's scrub jay. And when I began my adventure this day I started hearing some chickadees in these thick brambles but as the theme of the rest of the day was going to become they were pretty tough to photograph amidst some of this brush. Hey everyone welcome back to another adventure. Last week I was out at Lee K Ponds doing some birding for a waterfowl. This week I've come to one of Salt Lake's county parks. It's actually a huge park, Dimpledale Regional Park here in Sandy, Utah. I'm excited to see some different types of birds. Likely not going to be waterfowl here because I think the only water is a little creek and maybe a pond. I'm really hoping to see some scrub jays. I've just wanted to get some photos of them for a while now and so that is the main goal but we're going to see what other birds we can find out here. I'm sure there's going to be a lot of our normal winter species like chickadees, juncos, and more. Should be a pretty good time. Let's do this. For many the winter can become kind of dreary but I find a certain beauty in the changing seasons. The mountains have some snow dusting them and all the leafless trees dot the landscape and create a different kind of environment for these species to interact with. From this high vantage point I've actually just spotted a few scrub jays already. They're a little far off in the distance. I don't know if I'm gonna be able to get some great photos of them but I'm hoping I can work my way closer. I've seen at least three and I hear some more calling over there so I think we're gonna potentially fingers crossed be able to hit my goal today of getting some good photos of them but let's see what we can do. My initial views of scrub jays were something like this where they kept going overhead and I had no chance at a photo of them. Though I did take a photo of some of the birds I had been seeing a little closer. Managing all this gear can be a lot sometimes. I just had to make a tactical coat removal stop here and I'm thirsty. But to remove a coat meant taking my backpack off, taking this vest off that I wear that holds my binoculars and my camera and there was a scrub jay right in front of me of course. In the brushes though there would have been no chance for a good photo but still cool they're around. Let's hope we can get a little bit closer to one and snag a really good photo. They just keep flying over this area on the side of the hill. I want to get down to the middle just so I can maybe potentially see more birds but then I'd worry I'd see one and have to walk right back up. I'm like worried about losing height right now because it's better to try and get eye level when you're trying to get a really good shot and so oh there's one flying over right now. Yeah it didn't stop though. I'm stuck in two worlds right now essentially. I could either be patient and post up here and hope one comes close to me or I also kind of wanted to get some steps in today get my exercise and just keep moving along this park but here seems like the best spot. I don't know what I'm gonna do. I'm probably gonna walk just because I want to get those steps in and maybe I'll come across something else. The other thing is I'm a little limited on time. I was watching my favorite team West Ham play this morning in the Premier League and then my Green Bay Packers are playing the Chicago Bears in a huge game this afternoon that I don't want to miss so I have like a few short hours of birding out here before I have to head home so I don't miss that so I'm probably gonna move on and I kind of hate that because I might miss scrub jays but maybe there's some more over there too so yeah I guess let's continue. Finally getting some decent looks at these jays. It was unfortunate that they wanted to stay deep within the branches and brush so I didn't get super great looks but these photos were the best I was able to get right now. They were just okay though I did kind of like this last one showing a little bit more habitat of the bird on the branch. I was trying to whisper vlog for some reason in the field here and you can't hear me at all which is why I'm voicing over. I was talking about how I was trying to sneak around this area and get myself in a good position to photograph these birds but they just kept flying overhead and you'll see one that's about to fly overhead just now. So hilarious but I continue to try to position myself to get some better looks at these birds and I even finally got the tripod out and waited patiently for about 15 to 20 minutes but there was just no good looks at them. They would occasionally pop into the brush behind me or fly overhead but this just wasn't the right spot so I had to admit defeat and continue onwards. And while it looked like the scrub jay photos weren't gonna happen this day I did move on and see some really great other species. Some very loud and energetic black-capped chickadees came across my path next. And then up on the ridge above me I saw this hawk species. Now I'm pretty positive it's either a sharp-shinned or a cooper's hawk. As for which one I'm not totally certain. Unfortunately you can't see its legs so you rule out that field identification mark and the streaks are hard to tell apart. Its head looks kind of blockier to me and it was a pretty big bird so maybe I'd lean slightly coopers but let me know what you think. While I continued onwards heading back up to the ridge starting to work my way back towards the car thinking my adventure was just about to wrap up and then this happened. That's right a scrub jay came within 10-20 feet of me which is exactly what I was hoping for. I pulled out my camera quickly and fired off these shots. These were the portraits I was really hoping to get with a bird pretty big in frame instead of at a distance. They ended up being fairly sharp and I was really pleased with them with these last two being my favorites and I spent a little more time editing these because I really liked them with the different poses of the bird looking towards us or looking slightly down. So I'm walking back to the car and out of the corner of my eye I just see a flash of blue and turns out another scrub jay right next to me. I was able to get some photos. The photos I was pretty much hoping for which is so exciting. Right near the end of the adventure I'm starting to walk back towards my car just awesome really really cool. I was really hoping I could even get a little bit closer to get that really close-up detail but really pleased with those shots even with a little bit of branches in the way. And two more fun birds for you if you stuck around to the end of the video. First a morning dove and then I heard some tapping look to my side and lo and behold there was a woodpecker there. Always cool to see a downy woodpecker so I was happy with that but we finally ended up reaching back to our car and we're wrapping up the adventure. Well hey not a half bad little outing only problem is I got sand in my shoes but other than that some pretty good birds on a nice winter day. You know you gotta take what you can get in winter because it's not always super active out in the forests and habitats like this. A little bit better on the water generally but these kind of areas don't generally have a lot of birds and I thought it went pretty pretty well all things considered so very pleased with today's outing. I hope you enjoyed coming along on this adventure. Let me know what you think of the photos I was able to capture and instead of happy birding to end the video go pack go.