Wild Bird Trust photographers of the week

The weekend ended on a high when I saw that Wild Bird Trust present 2 of my pictures on National Geographics NewsWatch. I am always happy when I see them there.

The first picture is this of a Fieldfare.

The picture is taken in the end of May when we had great weather with high temperature and lots of sun as can be seen in the photo.

The Filedfare was actively searching for food just by the side of the track that I was walking on. It had a safe distance that it wanted to keep but sometimes it jumped straight out into the high grass to pick up a worm or two. I could then walk another 2 or 3 meters before I knelt and readied the camera for it to pop up from the grass.

I like the way the photo turned out. It shows a behavior, in a way. The picture could be better if the grass straw wouldn´t have been there and unfortunately I had to crop much of the picture to the right because I didn´t want to show the track I used. I was also lucky with the picture because seconds later a woman came walking on the track in the opposite direction and the Fieldfare took off as soon as she was to near.

The second picture is of this Chaffinch.

This picture is actually taken the day before the Fieldfare picture and I was then out biking along the Säveån on the same track that I use next day.

For me this is a good photo. I like most things about this photo of this wild bird. It shows how regal the bird is sitting on top of its world keeping an eye on me and the surrounding. The light isn´t good because of the dense foliage so I had to use a slow shutter speed to get a decent reading. There is noise in the picture from the start because I had to use ISO 1600 but I feel that this picture can handle that amount of noise.

The only small thing that I would have wanted to correct is the branch in the background that is lit up by the light that penetrates the foliage. A small thing but I will probably do a remake of the picture with some new techniques that I have learned since taking the picture.

I´d like to thank Wild Bird Trust and Doctor Steve Boyes for their work for the Wild Birds of Africa and I hope I contribute in my own way with the pictures that they put up on National Geographic’s NewsWatch.