Preface: I wrote what is below before I was told that the bird I had captured was a Merlin and, if so, a lifer, the first lifer in almost six years! Well, it is so and, thanks to the Canon SX50, able to capture even though mostly unseen. And thanks to James for making a dyptych when my not-so-cheap software doesn't have the capability. I mention skill, but what more luck could have been had than getting the merlin's eye betwen the branches!
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I bought my Canon SX50 in 2014 in anticipation of a trip to Yellowstone. The SX40 served (and still serves) me well, but I wanted to be certain that I would have a shot at any number of species of small birds that would be migrating through when we were there.
I was amazed at the reach of the zoom lens, but I never could explain how many feet away was something that needed 1320 mm. Even then, when you look at the EXIF, it's only 215 mm. Well, I've given up on conversions, but I still wanted to show the capability.
(Canon has subsequently introduced the SX60 and the SX70, but I haven't had the need or desire especially since the SX70 really requires a tripod, one more piece of equipment I'm too lazy to take with me. I'm enough of a burden.)
A couple of weeks ago, I went down the street to see if I could get some Yellow-rumped warblers that nest in the coastal Redwoods that live in this community. Before I left the house, I was looking out the window, and from 50 yards, give or take, I spotted what was a kestrel making passes at the tree. Now, a kestrel is the smallest NA raptor, and I was only certain because I know the flight of a kestrel so to speak. Actually, I knew what it wasn't. (As you'll see, I didn't even know that.)
Down the street. Kestrel - definitely - swoops over a roof behind me, and heads for the top of the redwood directly in front of me. I took a picture of as much of the redwood as could be accomplished, and then I took a guess at which little blip could be the bird.
This dyptych (with thanks to James - because my *(&%# software doesn't have that capability!) shows the tree, the arrow where I thought the kestrel was, and voila, the kestrel. And now you know how I am able to get some pretty fantastic images with a "point and shoot" that is certainly more than a P&S.
Oh, the tree is 75 feet tall according to our arborist. Yes, with 1,250 trees, 27 of them redwoods, our community has an arborist "on retainer." (Also needed because the city will not allow anyone to remove a tree more than a foot in diameter. If diseased, you need a "probable death certificate" (okay, I made that up, but you need a certified arborist to remove it).
Btw, I'm understating the skill to get a shot like this. The one thing I do have going for me ... and have had since the digital age began in 2000 - is that I have fantastic breath control. This shot was handheld. Well, hell, it was of a huge tree. If the kestrel had been in the open, I couldn't have taken more time. All of my shots, from kestrels in redwoods to damselflies on a wildflower (I wish), are handheld.
This is my prime example of why catchlight in the eye is so important in any kindof avian photography. Without it in this image, it might as well have been a sparrow, and there really would be no story to go with the experience of, to this point, my best image of an Ametican Kestrel that wasn't.
