Uncommonly Common - Part 2

I would be remiss if I didn't start by thanking all of those who viewed, commented on, favorited and starred yesterday's titmouse - thank you! When I joined this community several years ago, I never imagined how much it would push me to grow and learn. Wow.

Now, about today's blip... obviously it is not an actual bird, but rather a feather from a bird. Frankly, I didn't want to try to top yesterday's shot so I thought I'd go in a completely different direction. This feather is from one of my most common backyard birds - the Downy Woodpecker. It is unusual to look out and not see a DWP perched on a suet feeder or hitching up the trunk of a tree.

My initial plan was to try to get a close up of the feathers on an actual live bird - but the weather conspired against me. It has been raining all day and the light conditions are awful. I pretty much hated every shot I took. Then I remembered that I'd picked up a DWP feather a few years ago - it has always fascinated me and I've been meaning to try to photograph it.

I ended up using my Nikon P510 which does a decent job with macros. Then, I put a small drop of water on the feather (since every other feather I saw today was wet!). Played around with settings and light, and this was my pick for the day.

Spent some more time this morning on elder-care research - and got so involved that I completely forgot about a meeting I was supposed to attend. Maybe I need to put MYSELF in a memory care facility!

My other favorite shot from today is this one of Phoebe, in mono

Hope everyone is having a good week!

ciao,
Debbi

PS: And I made a spur-of-the-moment decision to order a 50mm f/1.8 lens tonight. I want to do more street photos this year and this should be the perfect lens for that. And it was amazingly inexpensive! (Yes, I am rationalizing...)