Manual Focus

This week I have been working in manual focus only. Practicing over and over again with birds. If I can start getting them in focus more than fifty percent of the time, I've got it made. Most numerous have been the red winged black birds.


Yesterday by fluke, I spied a birds nest in a stand of brush. This is a crop of a picture I took from 8.3 m away.


Today I went out again planning to try and find the nest again, but come at it inside the stand of trees from above. On the way I saw a couple of woodpeckers working away at a tree and snapped off some shots.


It took me about twenty minutes to find the nest again, because the sun was in a different position this afternoon than it was yesterday morning. Once I spied it, I circled forty feet up the bank and found a break in the trees to slip in, and found the nest on the first try. As soon as I got within four or five feet of the wee birdies, the entire thicket went crazy. Dozens of birds were sounding the alarm. One male swooped in and perched on the top of the nearest Alder. He was pissed.



After a minute or so, he started dive bombing at me and turning on his back at the last minute, to beat me about the head and ears with his wings. Five or six runs later, two more males joined him. One was pretty large. Thankfully, a puff of cottonwood fluff floated down into the nest and the chicks thought it was food. They went into a little frenzy long enough for me to get a few pictures. Then it was time to get out of Dodge.