Birbs

A few weeks ago I found myself at Titlow Park on the West side of Tacoma. It’s a fun, if not strange, place: it very closely straddles an active railroad line so the sounds of birds splashing and children playing are often interrupted with the blast and rumble of a passing train.

Anyway, I was there to attempt some wildlife photography using a rented A1 and the new Sony 70-200mm f2.8 OSS II. The lens is a mouthful (and a handful!)…but the combination is fantastic.

I think I followed this duck around for 20 minutes. He was probably wondering when I’d break out the bread slices. There were others present:

Once I had finished harassing the birds, I trekked farther into the woods on the north side of the park. If you follow the paths far enough it kicks you out at an overlook. I think it used to be an industrial parking lot. It has some nice views of the narrows.

This is my first any only experience “birding” with a camera. It’s was surprisingly physical - I was swinging the lens around trying to track the gulls in flight and was doing yoga to get low enough to shoot across the water. The A1’s animal/bird tracking made actually snapping photos easy; I can’t imagine trying to do this manually. Or on film, yikes!