The times I hear of a rare bird in my area I get excited especially when it is a lifer.  So when I heard a report of a Painted Bunting in San Benito County just over the Santa Cruz County line I went for it.  The Bunting is a very rare visitor to the Monterey Bay Area with 5 ebird reports on record.  They winters in Central America and southern Florida so this one seems to have lost its way.

Photo of the Week 30: Painted Bunting (Passerina ciris)EQ: D7200, 300mm f/2.8    Taken: 1-11-2016 at 9:50aSettings: 450mm eqv, 1/500s, f/3.5, ISO640, +1/3EV         Conditions: Deep Shade

Photo of the Week 30: Painted Bunting (Passerina ciris)

EQ: D7200, 300mm f/2.8    Taken: 1-11-2016 at 9:50a

Settings: 450mm eqv, 1/500s, f/3.5, ISO640, +1/3EV         Conditions: Deep Shade

A home owner opened up her place so local birders could taken in this beautiful bird.  Someone commented after seeing my photos that they thought it was a sweet looking bird.  I would have to agree.  I arrived around 9am and followed the instructions to the porch on the back of the home.  I sat still for about 20 minutes before first sighting the female bunting.  She would come and go at times getting fairly close to me.  This was a hard capture since the area was under a thick tree canopy and being early in the morning the light was fair from ideal.  I set the ISO to 640, my limit for noise with the D7200.  With that I set the aperture to f/3.5, which is just above wide open in hopes of getting a sharper images.  With these settings I needed to drop the shutter speed to 1/500s and turned on the image stabilization (Nikon calls it Vibration Reduction or VR).  The images where not as sharp as I would like but under the conditions acceptable especially for such a rare find.

Settings: 450mm eqv, 1/500s, f/3.5, ISO640, +1/3EV

Settings: 450mm eqv, 1/500s, f/3.5, ISO640, +1/3EV

Settings: 450mm eqv, 1/500s, f/3.5, ISO640, +1/3EV

Settings: 450mm eqv, 1/500s, f/3.5, ISO640, +1/3EV

Settings: 450mm eqv, 1/500s, f/3.5, ISO640, +1/3EV

Settings: 450mm eqv, 1/500s, f/3.5, ISO640, +1/3EV

Settings: 450mm eqv, 1/500s, f/3.5, ISO640, +1/3EV

Settings: 450mm eqv, 1/500s, f/3.5, ISO640, +1/3EV

Your comments are welcomed and if you have any questions about the photo or any other questions leave me a message.

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