The Sunday BIRD Volume 8, Issue 24, December 1, 2012

CollBaxter wrote:

“Very nice feeder takes. I find locally that water is a bigger attraction for a lager variety of birds than food in the garden.”

Absolutely... the bath attract all birds, squirrels, and I don't know what else. Even migrating birds will often stop in our yard to take a break....No herons yet,  though I've seen them standing in water no bigger than an ornamental pool..

Richard Pavek wrote:

“Nice series but I think 1/320 is way too slow for birds. You have enough headroom with the 70-300 to be using 1/000 in sunlight. Should get rid of the blur in the first shot. “

You're right I don't like to go below 1/500 with this lens even on a monopod and going to ISO 1600 is a non starter, as I'm not fond of the results even at 800 in shadow areas (but I do use it there all the time.) …...... I had to go back and re-look at the raw files to understand the exposure. These were taken a little before 10 local time (CST) when the sun hadn't quite made it into this area. With birds I normally use manual exposure and try to expose for the bird. In this case he was in shadow. I didn't want to increase the ISO and when possible I try to use apertures of 7.1 to 13 with this lens, more for DOF than for softness of the lens, which explains the resulting settings..... The movement, and resulting blur, is connected with his attempt to pick up and throw water over his back so that I actually like the blur here as it's part of the candid sequence that provides a small slice in this birds life... Thanks again for the comment and providing a reason for me to think more about this picture.

wrote:makarandsaraf

“Great captures, thanks for sharing. “

Thanks for the kind comment...