Limping and Birdscaping

A Black Browed Reed Warbler just outside Hakodate this morning and some kind of pink lotus at Onuma (I've taken so many of the usual yellow/white ones over the years, nice to see one of a different colour).

My right foot is still painful as hell with the gout so I could only limp and hobble around a bit, not much in the way of birds anyway. I can't really walk anywhere, thanks to my wife for driving me around today.........

Inspired by another blog I looked at some of my old photos from last year. These are apparently called 'birdscapes' ie showing birds in their natural habitat. The more cynical among us may say they are the photos we get when the bird flies off before we can get a decent shot (or the photo isn't sharp enough to crop) but I have to say I quite like them...........

This male Stonechat and Black Browed Reed Warbler were in the ricefields just outside Hakodate last year 2009. Both shots are uncropped, in fact very little processing has been done at all.





One problem with these type of shots is that the bird is inevitably in the centre (I always use the centre point AF point). Of course if I'm going to crop the picture this isn't such a problem. I must have locked focus and then recomposed that Stonechat pic (I think I was trying to get all that reed stem in), this is something I will try and do as a matter of course for these distant shots................

Thanks for clicking this link.