Wood Warbler

[Rich Steel]

Hi

Wood warbler are summer migrant visitors to the UK woodlands. Typically found in sessile western oak woods along with common redstart and pied flycatcher. Generally a difficult bird to photograph, as they reside in the tree tops letting out their distinctive call. Last year I found one using some low trees in woodland but the resultant shots were not great. I returned earlier this week to the site which is about 2 hours drive out from home to find the birds in the same area. I spent the rest of the day with one of the birds as it fluttered around its territory to continually changing singing posts, so still proved difficult.

http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k217/squidfish_2006/woodwarb8.jpg

Taken with 1Dmk3 and 500mm lens on a monopod. ISO 400 F5 and 1/500s with evaluative metering.

Cheers

Rich

p.s for anyone interested in hearing their song which really lights up the woodland :) It can be found here:

http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/w/woodwarbler/index.asp

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the singing pose and details. Too bad about the trunk in the BG. Could you have moved a bit to the left or right?

[Daniel Cadieux]

That big tree just had to be there smack dab in the BG - too bad ;-) I also would work on the light shadow on the face between the eye and the bill...certainly looks correctable in PS. Nice little song it has!!

[Rich Steel]

Thanks for your comments Axel and Daniel.

You couldn't move anywhere when the bird was close as it was very noisey under foot. I managed to get a few photos of the bird on clear backgrounds, which was tricky given the vegetation. I thought the tree in this photo gave a sense of place and was the image that reminds me most of being back there under the dappled light in the woods.

cheers

Rich