Guess who's coming to dinner?

[ColinM]

My friend, Mr Jay

300mm AFS F4, TC1.4 & D300



Not sure he could get many more peanuts in his mouth if he tried....



I think the PP on the second one could do with some more work - the angle I was forced to shoot at had a bit of a distracting background.
Shot through dirty window pane too...

[Akira]

Maybe the background is not ideal, but the bird is captured really well.  If the peanuts are of the common size, the bird I cannot identify should be pretty big...

[ColinM]

... the bird is captured really well. 
If the peanuts are of the common size, the bird I cannot identify should be pretty big...

Thanks Akira. As with all wild animals, you can't predict when they will be present.
For me the most practical time to catch them is before going to work and often the light levels aren't high enough with the 300mm & 1.4TC.

I've also tried lots of hand-held shots (they are sometimes only around for 1-2 minutes & get startled very easily).
However the quality of these was never high enough - I'm now using either a monopod (as with these), or a tripod (plus a lot of waiting & hoping)

On Friday it was sunnier, plus I could work from home: result!

As for the bird, in the UK we call it a Jay. Maybe around 30cm long?
http://www.rspb.org.uk/discoverandenjoynature/discoverandlearn/birdguide/name/j/jay/

Here's a cousin which may be present in countries closer to you
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_jay

[elsa hoffmann]

Colin lovely shots of a very greedy bird. Nicely captured

[Mongo]

beautiful Bird Colin ! and nicely shot given the BG you had to work with. Mongo doesn't think we have these in Australia.

Re your shooting position, Mongo noticed you have a reasonably non-distrating grey wall behind the feeder. Can he suggest you take advantage of that by positioning yourself with that as the immediate background. Also, possibly hang your feeder from a tree branch placed in front of that wall or other suitable BG. If possible, the branch should have some convenient small branched for the Jay to sit on after taking food from the feeder. This is when you press that shutter button. Good luck and show us the results.

[Peter Connan]

Apart from the already-mentioned background, the second one is virtually perfect, with a magnificent pose!

[Mike G]

Superbly done Colin!

Jays are really quite timid birds given that they are members of the crow family, but beautiful to look at!

[ColinM]

Thank you to Elsa, Mongo, Peter and Mike for your kind comments.

Some cunning strategy there too Mongo. If the truth be known, these images are very opportunistic for me.
There are periods of several hours when the birds don't come and I generally have slots of maybe 20 minutes before & after work when the light is actually good enough. Also the Jays are very easily spooked if they detect any movement.

But sometimes it all falls into place - here is one I took last year when the pair were teaching their young how to feed.
We'd never had them visit us before and were so pleased. Now grateful they've come back this year.

I'm guessing it's the Dad here has got his head feather ruffled - the relationships between parents and children seem to be just as challenging for all living creatures !!

[Akira]

Colin, the latest one is a treat.  I can see the same species from three different angles in one picture!

[Mongo]

Mongo agrees with Akira's last comments. They also look like naughty children stealing treats while one stand look-out

[ColinM]

They also look like naughty children stealing treats while one stand look-out

Haha

If you've arrived at that conclusion already, see the full sequence here
http://www.pbase.com/celidh/jays

The youngster had already dropped his peanut & had to pick it up. I guess the conversation went something like:
"For goodness sake, how many times have I told you to stop playing with your food"