Bird ID Please .... oh and strange bokeh!!

Hello to all of the Birding people out there. Can you please help me identify this bird please, seen today in Cornwall. The closest I could find was a Stonechat but they illustrations seem to show a total black head. These chaps/chapesses below seem to have distict grey "chin" and "cap" along with the distinct blackness from beak around the eyes (like a sleeping mask)! Maybe they are Stonechats in some sort of transitional stage? This looks like a Male and Female I assume.

The other thing is the very very strange bokeh. The lens was the 100-400L IS and the subject was some distance away. Could it be to do with the UV filter? Its a Hoya Pro-1 UV.

FYI - these pics are very very very heavily cropped, high ISO etc and are not meant to be "quality shots" ...... just to see if I could 100% ID the bird.

Many thanks all - cheers - Mark

But if those are heavily cropped your IQ issues are due to being way too far away from your subject - you're simply asking too much from the lens.

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I would not call it strange bokeh, so much as heavy noise reduction and blurring that is causing a "watercolor" like effect.

Not sure on the ID, but I've used the 100-400 and I found best results shooting RAW. Canon's high ISO jpgs just have too much NR. With birds you can shoot raw, then selectively apply a blur mask to the background and leave the bird as is. The feather detail of the bird will hide most noise and the image will look much sharper.

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This is a "Stonechat - Saxicola torquata".
Pictures 1, 4, 5 are the mail and 2, 3 are pictures of the female.

First, the quality is not very good, you need to find ways to get closer to this tiny little bird after learning her movements then you can get a better (much better) pictures.

Second, you need to check your filter, take pictures with and without it and then compare them.
Third, one of the reasons to this bokeh is the heavy crop that you made.

You can take a look in my gallery for this bird, http://www.pbase.com/elroyie/stonechat

most of the pictures in my stonchat's gallery were taken with my 100-400L IS + Kenko X1.4 TC.

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Thats great, many thanks for the info.

I am sure that there is quite an art to "stalking" small birds and anticipating their movements. These two were seen as I was walking along the coast path and it was a case of shoving my longers lens on quicly and taking the picture ........ I had places to go and did not have any binoculars.

Very nice galleries BTW

Cheers - Mark

My bet is that the strange bokeh is caused by a filter on the lens.
DO NOT use a filter on that lens.

Thanks CCS70

I am sure that I read something about filters on this lens, does it apply to this lens only or other Canons too? Has it something to do with the push/pull design/chamber etc?

Cheers - Mark

Virtually the same effect noted here:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1029&message=24019929
and another explanation here:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1029&message=24049276

General consensus is that it is caused by the filter.

high temps can also make for weird bokeh. look at a mirage above the road and it looks sort of like funky bokeh, you get really uneven indices of refracation from spot to spot in the air.

not saying that was the case this time, but it can be.

looking more closely, lots of it might just be what he said too.

Yes I have also had the same problem. Take a photo with and without the filter and see how you go.

Some cheap filters do this. Also some cheap filters are sold as pro ones and therefore you get the above results.