Something catches the corner of my eye, and then I hear it: the rush of wings, and the reedy call of a flock of Bohemian waxwings, coming to feed on the remains of the fruit from the ornamental crabapple trees in our neighbourhood.
Whether I’m working, blogging, or gardening, I drop what I’m doing and run for my camera. Then I walk slowly and calmly to what I hope is just outside the “spook range” for these magnificent birds, and do what I can.
After a week or so of these unpredictable waves, I have many shots.
I have underlit ones.
I have well-lit but slightly blurry ones.
I have ones with a distracting background.
I have low-res ones taken at the limits of the camera’s zoom.
I have a few that I think are OK, but where I’d still like more detail.
I have one where I just don’t care about the sharpness or lack thereof: I like it anyway.
And I have a few that I’m quite tickled with: sharp pictures where I can see some feather detail, and the bird is doing its bird thing.
My photographer friends tell me that a subject should fill half the frame on zoom, if I want to get acceptable resolution. So given that this is where many of these shots started, I can’t really complain!
But could someone have a talk with the birds? I’d like them to be a whole lot less spookable.
Your leisure lightens my leisure. Many thanks!
Laurna – Good to know. Thanks! I fear that these delightful birds have moved on, now, to grace another region. I’ll be watching for them next spring.
Don’t give up yet Isabel. There were a few around yesterday still.
Nice collection of shots. When one is picky with their images, many more get deleted than kept.
The “Pros” only let you see their one or two keeps, not their ’00’s of deletes
Jim R – Yes, I guess that’s right – delete all evidence of failure (broadly defined)! I’ve been keeping an intermittent eye out for the flock, but wondered if they’ve headed further north. Glad to hear they’re still about . . .