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These, along with the Bohemian Waxwings, are said to be, "The Most HANDSOME Bird in North America"! They are almost exclusively berry eaters. The red spot on the wing, (which is NOT always present) is ACTUALLY WAX! from the skin of the berries they eat! They CANNOT digest this wax, so have evolved glands in their wings that concentrate and excrete this wax which gathers on the tips of the wings as a bright red residue and falls off to be replaced shortly thereafter with more wax.
These birds live their whole lives in fish-school- flocks, of from a few to several hundred birds. They hit a berry filled bush or tree and in a matter of minutes strip EVERY berry from it like a school of pirhanna. They pass berries back and forth, and have the ODD habit of tossing a berry high in the air and then catching and swallowing it, the same way people toss a piece of popcorn up and catch it in their mouths. They make high, ALMOST inaudible whistle, that sounds like steam hissing to human ears. IN early May, anywhere from 300 -500 of these birds descend upon my yard to feed upon the berries from the several Mulberry trees in my yard, giving me AMPLE opportunities for incredible photographs!
These birds live their whole lives in fish-school- flocks, of from a few to several hundred birds. They hit a berry filled bush or tree and in a matter of minutes strip EVERY berry from it like a school of pirhanna. They pass berries back and forth, and have the ODD habit of tossing a berry high in the air and then catching and swallowing it, the same way people toss a piece of popcorn up and catch it in their mouths. They make high, ALMOST inaudible whistle, that sounds like steam hissing to human ears. IN early May, anywhere from 300 -500 of these birds descend upon my yard to feed upon the berries from the several Mulberry trees in my yard, giving me AMPLE opportunities for incredible photographs!
Category Photography / Animal related (non-anthro)
Species Avian (Other)
Size 640 x 449px
File Size 264 kB
A couple friendly tips: you are wise to use shutter priority and with birds you typically want at LEAST 1/800" but 1/1000" or faster is preferred. Typically if you are shooting, to help prevent motion blur, you want a shutter speed that is at least as fast as your focal length; in this case you are shooting at 300mm, so you would try for 1/300" or faster.
Your ISO is really high for that particular camera at 1600. The ISO is producing a lot of noise in this image. You could have lowered the ISO a lot as there is typically no need for an ISO setting that high in daylight unless your aperture is too small. In this case, your aperture is way, way too small. f/32 is unbelievably small. You might want a good depth of field, but you don't want to go above f/16 typically. Going any smaller than f/16 and you will start getting some image quality degradation due to diffraction. When it comes to birds, it's not a bad thing to have a narrow depth of field with a nice soft bokeh, so don't be afraid of using larger apertures. It'll only help with your shutter speed and ISO.
If I were in your situation here and taking the pictures, I probably would have gone with settings like:
shutter priority
1/1000"
f/8 (guessing your lens is the 70-300mm f/5.6 or similar)
ISO 400 (guessing based on how bright it looks)
That would kind of give you the best of all worlds for image sharpness, shutter speed, and depth of field.
Your ISO is really high for that particular camera at 1600. The ISO is producing a lot of noise in this image. You could have lowered the ISO a lot as there is typically no need for an ISO setting that high in daylight unless your aperture is too small. In this case, your aperture is way, way too small. f/32 is unbelievably small. You might want a good depth of field, but you don't want to go above f/16 typically. Going any smaller than f/16 and you will start getting some image quality degradation due to diffraction. When it comes to birds, it's not a bad thing to have a narrow depth of field with a nice soft bokeh, so don't be afraid of using larger apertures. It'll only help with your shutter speed and ISO.
If I were in your situation here and taking the pictures, I probably would have gone with settings like:
shutter priority
1/1000"
f/8 (guessing your lens is the 70-300mm f/5.6 or similar)
ISO 400 (guessing based on how bright it looks)
That would kind of give you the best of all worlds for image sharpness, shutter speed, and depth of field.
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