Red Bellied Woodpecker in New England

[Watchin]

Hi all,
Well I'm back in New England for the summer and back into photography after
a 2 year hiates. The main difference is I'm doing it for myself now, and I'm starting to
enjoy shooting again.

Got a new lense to do nature photography, went out to try it out and look what I found.
Papa red bellied woodpecker minding the nest.



and occasionally coming out to yell for the wife to come feed him... hmmm sound familiar



The avatar is another from this series.

So far I'm impressed with the Sigma 150-500 OS, some call it the Bigma (it's certainly big enough)
I call it sweeet !

[mattchase]

Awww, such a cute little guy.

[JoePhoto]

Nice shots! I bet that's one big effing lens!

[Watchin]

"It's not sooo bad." says he as he takes his arm out of the sling.

It's definitely the bigest MA I have ( I thought people were punning with the "BigMA" name).
It's the Sigma 150-500 f5-6.3 HSM DG APO OS and it's ?only? 17 x 3.7 x 3.7 inches ; 4.2 pounds

I can handhold (maybe 5 shots) down to 1/125 so it's on a tripod or mono-pod most of the time.
BUT it do get the reach for most bird and animal shots !!! and that's what it's here for.

I was shooting gators with a 70-300 one day when another photog says
"erhhh, you might want to get back a little, that guy'll chop your foot if you get any closer!"
Looked down and RAN back...thought "Yep, definitely need a longer lense!"
Felt like the police chief in Jaws .... "We gonna need a BIGGER boat!!!"

With a 1.4x converter it'll be even longer (next toy)