Garden Birds

As it was a lovely, warm sunny day it was the first time this year that I have been able to sit out on the patio for my breakfast. Having coffee outside and noticing all the birds at the bird feeder, motivated me to spend a bit of time outside photographing the birds this afternoon. Although our patio is only able 3-4 metres away from the bird feeder, the birds do not seem to be frightened of our presence as long as we don’t move about too much. This means I can sit behind a tripod and merrily snap away.

I decided today I would try and catch some of the birds on the wing and the only way to do that and maintain focus on them is to catch them either as they approach the bird feeder or fly off. It’s no use trying to capture them once they move as they are away out of the picture by the time you press the trigger. The only way seems to be to be shooting them continuously on the feeder and hope that one of them will fly away or another bird will come into land. So it's very hit and miss and you take no end of reasonable pictures of birds on the feeder only to throw them all away.

In some ways post-processing is even more of a chore as you have to work your way through so many images. I took over 750 shots this afternoon and as I was shooting in Raw there was no way I was going to be keeping all those images. As there was no simply outstanding shot I decided to give you a montage of four images. I’ve included one of a group of three birds sitting the one of the trees just because they were in such a straight line that they are all moderately sharp. I’m afraid to appreciate this blip at all you will definitely need to view it LARGE.