Watchful Birds and a Grasshopper.

Wild Bird Wednesday.
 

1. The vulture on a fence was a surprise. I only took one picture before he flapped his wings and flew away.

2. The crow likes to perch high on a tree at Indian Run Overlook in Shenandoah National Park.

3. Also in the park, a green grasshopper landed on my car window. After peering in at me and my camera, he turned sideways and posed!

4. Late yesterday afternoon, a cardinal visited my bird bath. Although the light was dim, I was anxious to do a test shot with my old Nikon P510 because I was using a new SD card. Normally that's not a concern, but I'd had problems using a memory card with that camera for a long time. Yesterday I drove to an old-time camera shop in Warrenton because we don't have one anywhere near my home. They suggested that the last card I used in it was too fast/too new for the old camera. I should have figured that out because my trail cam does not work with "Ultra" cards either. 

Northern Cardinal, Female.

I have a newer camera so I only use the old Nikon (which came out in 2012!) for taking bird pictures at my window. It has a 42x optical zoom, which is great for photographing birds, except that focusing is tricky so I use work-arounds, like placing all my feeders the same distance from the house. Since the SD card wasn't working but the Nikon has built in memory,  I was using only that memory and downloading the pictures every few days. It's good to have the extra memory of a card again.