Male Red Wing Blackbird.

IMG_9934, a photo by Michel (Mike) Soucy on Flickr.

What a morning it was!
With a coffee in the car, I head for a spot I had started to frequent spot on the St. Lawrence. It's truly an ideal spot for a quick "drive-by" shoot.

It's close to water with surrounding marshes and plenty of sunrising light. I'll check the sky from my livingroom window before the sun has risen and if the skies are clear, I head out to greet the sun with a newly formatted SD card.

Once I'm there, I pull over, turn the car off, grab the cameras, turn them on, pop off the lens cap, extend the hood on the 400mil, roll my window down for support, and wait and watch. One thing I need to do is get a bean-bag support for the window mounted 400.

It wasn't long before the Red-Wings strated made their way to the cat-tails 15' from the car...and I start firing rapid series of shots.

I can tell when the bird is about to sing, as they start to expand their chest with the wings slightly spread. I need to overexpose (starting at +1/2 stop) to get the detail in the black feathers.

Driving into work shortly afterwards it hard to contain my excitement, cause I knew I had captured some great shots.

Until next time...

Happy shutterbugging!


(c) Copyright Michel (Mike) Soucy.
Shot taken with a Canon EOS 60D set on Aperture priority using an EF400mm f/5.6L USM lens. The exposure was taken at 400 mm for 1/250 sec at ƒ / 5.6 using digital film with a speed rating of ISO 400.