more birding walks. May biodivercity -- 15 foto .:. EN/RU

But before I show you what I came up with to this round, let me step back a bit; you see, in order to jump well, you must make a good takeoff!

Last week the challenge had its prompt as "Bird Beak" -- somehow I missed taking part in that round, I didn't have a good momentum, probably because I had no appropriate convincing close-up capture. Murphy's law, as always, made its best, and as soon as the previous challenge ended, such photo have arrived immediately! Now its too late and off the contest, but I cannot help but share it, cause its challenge and its fun!

Enjoy: a hell yeah convincing beak of a coot duck sitting on her hatch. And yes, she did protest loudly against me taking pics at close range; this portrait should be accompanied by the caption: "No photos allowed!"

So... after this lyrical introduction and perhaps my best 'moment captured' in a while, I can show you the rest of my birding photo-walks for the past week. This is biodivercity I have at my place.

Wagtails are very timid, shy, distrustful creatures - they never let me get closer to their body than 2-3 meters... That's why I still don't have good close-ups of this bird, only "portraits in the interior". But I love this genre too; a portrait can be interesting / successful precisely due to the background texture, like in the photo above. Below is uncropped version of this frame.

Ay, I forgot to say: all the photos were taken with my new Canon 70-200mm 2.8L lens, which, of course, is not as "tele" as the 300mm that I have at my disposal, but a little longer than my usual macro Sigma 150mm, and most importantly, it has a large aperture and fast fast autofocus. But the weight is 1.3 kg :(

I accompanied the tinted warbler for 15 shots. She jumped from branch to branch inside (!) bushes, but sometimes she appeared out of the bush, so she was photographed several times - and, moreover, from various angles. She hunted midges, with which a whole cloud grazed near the water. I don’t know what midges eat, but the warbler fed on midges. An inconspicuous gray bird without any special distinguishing features, ideal for a spy in appearance - the identification site helped me in determining.

Please note photo on the left: it is not reduced, just cropped copy of the photo above. Yes, part of the image is out of focus and blurry due to bird's movement, but look how clearly the lens rendered all the feathers texture on its head! This is truly fantastic lens and I don't regret buying it even though the price was very high. This is the second version of the lens, without optical stabilizer.

There also exist the 1st version of 70-200mm lens which has less weight and lower aperture (min. aperture = 4), and this is a completely different lens, believe me. Autofocus and ability to draw a nice picture are much lower.

Оцените фрагмент картинки. Да, часть изображения не в фокусе и смазана из-за движения, но смотрите, как четко объектив отрисовал текстуру перьев на голове! Это фантастический объектив, не жалею что купил его, хотя цена была суровой. Это 2-я версия (без оптического стаба).

Excuse me for praising myself now, but in my humble opinion, I got a very unusual and cool photo. A scene like this doesn't happen every day! Believe me, no photoshop, I did not blur the second leg of this starling. But what's going on here? I have no explanation for what is happening!

Only the impression that I caught him in a moment of philosophical self-reflection, This moment lasted for several minutes, during which I went around him in a circle and did doubles, and the starling turned his head, following me with his eyes, but did not change his landing leg ... I hope @ratel would come and suggest some explanation? Would be much appreciated!

Oh, by the way: "One leg" is also an interesting and promising prompt, it is worth adding to the topic pool from Neli pick up the future topics.

Over the past week I have taken a few hundred shots of nesting coot ducks and great grebes; and know what? I still do not lose hope to make captures of their chicks - in three last years I have not been able to do this even once. Please, wish me a golden luck.