Early morning walks here in Inverness Village often involve encounters with birds, both songbirds and large wading birds. I don’t mean that the encounters are face-to-face or always even that close, but occasionally the distances are surprisingly small. This mockingbird sat on the top of a bush alongside the street, about shoulder height above the ground and no more than a couple of feet from the street edge. I noticed him (or her?) while walking the dogs at first light yesterday and went back later with my camera and tripod to try for a capture. I fully expected that he would fly when I stopped to set up the tripod, but no! Much to my surprise he held his position and sat there for several minutes, seemingly interested in what I was doing and apparently not at all afraid of my movements.
He seemed particularly interested in the sound of the shutter clicking away, and when he did decide to move he only jumped to a palm tree nearby, posing once again as I shot several images. The images are quite sharp and since I was very close, no cropping was required. These photos were taken with my Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 VR II lens using a Nikkor 1.7x teleconverter, so the combination lens focal length is 340 mm. This corresponds to a 35-mm film equivalent focal length of 510 mm, a respectably-long (although still minimal by some standards) telephoto lens for birding. I was pleased with these results!
Every little feather…wow!