The bird watching contest at work is over, and I'm excited to share the results. Participants received 1 point for each species of bird that they saw, and 1 additional point for each species of bird that they photographed. The points have not been officially tallied yet, but I believe I have seen and photographed 33 different species of birds during the month of March! I used this contest as an excuse to buy myself a "birding" lens for my camera (a Tamron 150-600mm), and I tried to go out for a little bit each day to look for birds. I also brought my camera along for the ride to daycare and back, and also for a trip I had to make to Costco... just in case I saw any interesting birds.

I'm quite happy with the result, although I don't think I won the contest. Some people managed to track down almost 40 different species!

You can hover your mouse cursor over the image of the birds to see the names of each species. If you scroll down, there is also an interactive map! You can see where I managed to find each type of bird, and if you click on the markers you can go to the full resolution image of that bird. I'm still getting used to my new lens, and some of the photos were taken from very far away, so they may be a little blurry at full res.

Technical Details: These photos were taken with my 5D Mark II + EF 70-300 IS or Tamron 150-600 G2, usually at full zoom and with various aperture and shutter speeds.