I Found a Stick

A Photography Site

Birds with Sticks

Behold, a Creator of More Sticks!

Birds with Sticks, Creator of Sticks, Sticks

There is something fascinating about the mother of sticks, the stump. This former tree has seen things, many dark and terrible things. It’s probably seen it all, from high winds, floods, and fire. What finally brought about the slow demise of this eroding landmark?

My spouse is a little concerned about my fascination with all things sticks. I mean, they’re just the broken ruins of a tree, right?

“Right?” asks the hawk, who sits upon what will one day be a stick ripe for photographing.

You can even see a few sticks in the making clinging to the branch, although not for long. The next good wind will drive them back to the Earth, where the cycle of life will begin once again.

Food for thought. Just don’t become food for the hawk.

This posts has been brought to you by this book. Disclaimer: I wrote it, and it released today. Happy book birthday, book!

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All birbs that show up on this blog are birbs regardless of species. Birbs are birbs are birbs. If you want to identify this birb, you can reference Cooper’s hawks and sharp-shinned hawks. It’s one of those two. Maybe. Possibly. (No, I don’t want you to identify the birb.)

A crow meets a lonely stick (in training)!

Birds with Sticks, Sticks

This crow, though. So, there I was, taking a nice hike along the Coyote Peak trail not far from where I live. My husband spots the crow eating a dead fish while floating on a stick. (There will be a future post of this lovely stick and the crow’s most excellent taste in sticks later.)

The crow takes flight, and since I’d already been graced with a picture of a crow sharing interest in the same stick, I decided to grab some shots of it flying off. Behold! The crow decided to do a flyby of this most excellent stick-in-training.

The reservoir we hiked around had plenty of sticks, with an ample selection of sticks-in-training.

This post has been brought to you by this book. Disclaimer: I wrote it. In other news, this book has nothing to do with sticks, nor does it have anything to do with crows.

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Fun Fact: this American crow was doing its best to disguise itself as a fish crow. Alas, fish crows do not typically live in my region, but it was a delight seeing this doing crow things.

This Proud Canada Goose Found a Stick!

Birds with Sticks, Sticks

Well, that stick belongs to this goose now. This is a daddy goose who has seen things, dark and terrible things, and he is finding comfort with the stick he has found. The park is clearly labeled as a non-smoking area, so he turned to his next option, the noble stick.

While I meant to photograph sticks on the ground, I found it hugely amusing that this goose picked up a smol stick while chomping grass and ended up carrying it around with him.

This goose has seen things, dark and terrible things. (It couldn’t have anything to do with his six children, not at all.)

If anyone wants to take that itty bitty stick from that goose, I wish them the best of luck.

He means business.

This post has been brought to you by this book. This book does not contain sticks, but it does contain danger noodles, geese, Canadians, and general hilarity. Disclaimer: I wrote this book.

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New to I Found a Stick? Begin your adventure here.

Fun Fact: The proper name of this bird is a “Canada” goose, but the wise call them Canadian geese hoping these feathered murder machines will take mercy on their souls. 99% of all Canadian malice is held within the dark souls of these migratory birds.

This egret photobombed these sticks in the making!

Birds with Sticks, Sticks

Reeds counts as sticks, right? They can be wielded as a sword, although they have questionable durability. When dried, they have a stick-like appearance… we should welcome all sticks, no matter if they look a little off compared to other sticks.

I do find it absolutely hilarious that I went out to photograph sticks for this project but located this beautiful bird instead. The bird was quite a sociable one. In the time I spent out photographing sticks, I ‘somehow’ managed to take 1,800 pictures of this egret.

… Yes, it took 1,800 tries to get a decent shot of the bird in flight. Bonus: there are sticks!

Reeds are one of my favorite types of sticks, though. You can turn them into baskets, you can make instrument parts out of them, you can turn them into instruments if you find the right type… you can blow bubbles with them. Sticks are amazing.

There were also ducks, but they did not opt to pose near sticks for me. The ducks opted to take naps for the most part, doing their afternoon duck things. I do quite like ducks, but much like Canada geese, they can have a temper. These ducks were a mix of wild and domestic mallards.

For a little of the technicals behind this shot, I was using a Sony a1 with a Tamron 28-200 F/2.6-5.6 DI III RXD lens. When I photograph birds, I usually use a Sony FE 200–600 mm F5.6–6.3 G OSS. Sticks prefer being photographed with the Tamron.

Birds are jerks. But when your shutter speed is set to 16,000, and the bird happens to be on the ground when you depress the shutter button, and you also happen to track the bird flying right in your face, sometimes you get lucky.

And yes, the bird wasn’t quite close enough to touch–but would have been, if only I had possessed a stick.

This post is brought to you by this book. Disclaimer: I wrote this book.

Want more of my shenanigans? You can follow me on facebook.

New to I Found a Stick? Begin your adventure here.

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