Chaffinch

There always seems to be a rush of activity around the bird feeder during lunch time or when we are sitting having coffee after lunch. As I know within an hour or so the light will be fading fast, I often feel motivated to capture a garden bird as my blip.

Out comes the long lens and the bean bag and as sure as eggs is eggs the sun will have moved round that little bit more and is no longer shining on the bird feeder which lessens the likelihood of the birds staying around as well as making life much more difficult for me in maintaining a reasonably high shutter speed to avoid bird movement and counteract camera shake.

If I have patience the birds will re-appear though today I decided to avoid further disturbance by shooting through the double glazing rather than opening the window.

I chose to use my 200mm lens with a 2x extender as I find this combination is so much more responsive for autofocus than my 100-400mm lens.

I always try to photograph the birds away from the bird feeder if I can and was fortunate to day that a lot of the birds were using the trees around before flying down to the bird feeder. Life gets a lot easier when there is not a lot of foliage around. This fir tree is also close to the bird feeder and makes an ideal perch though I do find that the birds tend to bounce up and down a bit on the branches as it sways in the wind.

We had our usual clutch of goldfinches and a chaffinch today as well as magpies and pigeons and I have chosen this chirpy little chap for my blip.

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