Washington Cemetery was one of the first locations in southwestern Pennsylvania to attract White-winged Crossbills this
winter, where a flock ranging from 40 to 100 birds has been present since mid-December. I finally had a chance to closely
observe them on 24 January.
I was pleased with the first two photos on the right below. On winter days with a bright but overcast sky, one technique
that can help offset the uninteresting grays of the sky is to silhouette a poorly lit bird against the sky, and then grossly
(and intentionally) overexpose the sky. This renders the sky as a perfect white, and if done correctly, will expose the subject
itself correctly. The pictures come out with a kind of studio look which I find appealing, though of course this would never
pass as a classic "field guide" portrait. (Also note this is hard to pull off if the overcast is a deep gray; usually pictures
against that kind of light just come out washed out and boring.)
The picture on the bottom left show an adult male using its tongue to extract a seed from a cone as it holds the cone
open with its beak. I've been trying to get a good picture of this behavior all winter and this is the best one so far (and
it's not very good).
Click on any of the pictures below to view a larger version.
