Figure 1 – American Goldfinch (spinus tristis) in winter plumage, January. (c) DE Wolf 2014.

At this time of year, the beautiful American goldfinches are pale shadows of their late summer selves.  They are however, grateful visitors to my feeder, and unlike many of the more frenetic birds, they seem to sit politely at the feeding stations, like well-behaved dinner guess. Of course, sitting with their heads buried in the feeder is hardly they way yu want to photograph them The fellow pictured in Figure 1, with his prized sunflower seed, had a cowl of gold that very much exceeded that of most of his peers.  Perhaps he is a Boston Bruins fan. What has most intrigued me is that if I take a picture of even the palest goldfinch, I find that with just a little boosting of the color saturation they become brightly yellow.  No other adjustment is necessary.  The color is there latent and subdued, ready to pop out – like the Yin of summer buried deep within the Yang of winter.

This image was taken hand-held and again through glass at 300 mm.  The little birds are a bit demanding subjects.  But I think that this was reasonably successful.

Canon T2i with EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM lens at 300 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority A mode,1/160th sec. at f/11.0 with +1 exposure compensation