I haven’t had a lot of time this week to make a big blog for Wednesday, but I have a little something. Last night, I finally saw a Blue Jay at one of my bird feeders, he was in the late afternoon sunlight, and I managed to hide out with my 70-200mm lens and shoot some pictures. I think that Blue Jays are very pretty birds and I have been waiting for them to show up. Also, my mother sent me this feeder and I have been trying to get a good photo of a bird on this feeder to send her.

I was actually hiding behind my fence, peaking over at the bird, and I had the sun at my back. I had lots of light and was able to shoot at f/8 and get good focus depth. I was shooting on Continuous – High as he was jumping around a bit. I did get this shot of him looking right at me.

Tip: It is important to try to get the sun at your back to get good light on the bird or any animal you are shooting. I had this problem with a photo of some bison that I took a few months ago.

I love the composition of the photo, but the light was in front of me and to the left and the bison were backlit and do not read well at all. Had the sun been at my back, this would have been a near perfect picture.

Meanwhile, back at the bird feeder a White Wing Dove came along to bother the Blue Jay. The below image is a bit of a crop. The Blue Jay is in the shadow, but the dove is well lit. The doves can never seem to figure out how bird feeders work.

I hope you enjoyed the Blue Jay.

I got a new (refurbished) lens from Nikon recently that I am excited about and I am working up something for Saturday on that topic.

Thanks for reading.