Photo: Rod Smoliak
Happenstance leads to winning photo.
On the Fence, placed first in the wildlife and nature category of the Focus on Maple Grove photo contest. Rod Smoliak took the photo on a baseball field at Cedar Island Elementary.
“I had been going to this area quite frequently as there was an osprey nest that had recently hatched three little ones,” he says. “… they spend most of the summer there before migrating in late summer. As I was taking pictures of the new family, I heard a little chirp behind me. I turned around and saw this bird sitting on the fence.”
The photo of the American goldfinch, which are common in Minnesota, was captured with a Sony a7r4 camera.
“Photographing small birds takes a lot of patience, since [they] normally don’t stay in one spot long,” Smoliak says. “Usually, by the time you locate them with the camera and then focus, they take off. In this case, it apparently was quite comfortable there and stayed for a minute.”
