I have recently been making a lot of attempts to photograph birds, but none of the photos comes close to matching the visual impact of this female red-winged blackbird that I photographed in early June at Brookside Gardens in Wheaton, MD.
Normally you are not supposed to photograph a bird from the front, but in this case it seems to heighten the intensity of the bird’s stare. The sky was almost white that day and it disappeared when tweaks were made, but that seemed to fit with the industrial look provided by the rebar that was used to form a trellis.
Intense female red-winged blackbird
Here is another shot of the blackbird on the trellis, with some greenery in the background. You can see some of the details of the trellis, and it looks like the rusted metal is almost a perfect color match for some parts of the bird.
Bird on a wire
My blog is still less than three months old, so I have a number of my pre-blog favorites that you have not yet seen. I will occasionally share some of them when I don’t have any new material or don’t have time to prepare the new photos.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
I love the “industrial” view of the blackbird. The background is the perfect compliment. Your photos are really sharp!
I was practicing that with a friend’s professional-grade Nikon and a 180mm macro lens. That combo made for some really sharp photos. To some extent the equipment does make a difference (on auto focus the lens seems to focus better than any of my lenses). Still, there is a huge element of luck involved. I heard the noise of the bird and it was positioned in ways where I could get clear shots. That is not usually the case. Your recent bird photos were also really sharp–I liked them a lot.
You’ve been using so much other equipment lately, you’ll be tempted to upgrade! The industrial bird photo works pretty well.
I definitely do enjoy playing around with new photo gear and it’s nice when I can do so without having to purchase it myself. After a period of exploration, I probably will settle down a bit as I find my preferred mode of expression in terms of subject matter and equipment. Until then am likely to be like the bees that I often observe pausing for a short while at one bright flower before moving on to the next one.
I think those shots are excellent!