The above American Crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos) was standing behind a short wall with snow on top — and he had a backdrop of snow which created the effect of this portrait.
Crow flying against a background of snow-covered trees — and kicking snow off her feet as she takes off.
This pair of crows was sitting on a snowy branch above me. They were mumbling things to each other, the way crows do and taking turns preening each other. The image, to me, had the appearance of a secret being told, one crow to another.
I love seeing birds in their ostensibly private moments — the ones which show their personality and uniqueness. This photo was tricky to post-process since it was a bit under-exposed when I shot the black birds against the white winter sky. I spot-metered on the crows and shot in RAW, but still didn’t have a lot of room to bring up shadows without creating extra noise. To me, it’s simply the documentation of a lovely moment, something at which a camera excels in any form.
Somewhere, I have a photo from this winter, of an American Crow building up a snow layer on his plumage like a little charcoal snowman. If I find it, I’ll post it. I enjoy watching the crows forage through the snow, collecting snowflakes on their beaks as they root around for sustenance beneath the frozen layers.
This crow was taking five from the hard work of breaking open mussels. At the local beach where I’ve been photographing each week, low tide draws crows en masse. They scrape shellfish off rocks and perform the same aerobatic maneuvers as gulls — hovering and dropping their catch on rocks below to bust open the shells. The photo was taken just steps from the tidelands as this crow finished eating his mussel and rested on the snowy timber.
