Right Place, Right Time, ......and Right Bird!

Figure 1. Red-Winged Black Bird.

In California, and perhaps other places, red-winged black bird is a common sight in spring and summer. This one is shot with Canon 50D with Canon 100-400mm lens. This combo of equipment is not supposed to get a shot like this. As this is a small bird, it tends to fly away when you are trying to close in. Most of the time, I can only fill at most one ninth of the frame at the distance it allows me using this combo.

In early March 2012, I was in Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge, which is quite remote from any big cities. I saw this bird when I was still far away on the auto route. Somehow it didn't fly away when I approached. I didn't expect this and so I had to back up my car to get a good angle of it. Surprisingly enough, it still allowed me at a close distance like this, which is my ever closest distance to this bird. So I have good opportunity to get a close up of this bird.

The time is around sunset and the horizon is quite hazy. This provides a good background for this bird. This is especially useful for a bird or animal (bison, moose, and black bear) in black. If the background is too bright, it is difficult to get the details of the subject. In addition, the bright background competes with the subject. The soft effects from the bokeh work pretty well in this case. It is not easy to wait for all conditions right, especially for wildlife. But sometimes it just cooperates!