Jay Stalking

I have a male scrub jay hanging around my backyard, and one of my obsessions this summer will be to try to get a decent photo of him—in flight.

These are just gorgeous birds. I've had one visit in past years, but usually he would only make an appearance a couple of times over a couple of days, and then he'd be gone. But last year I learned they REALLY like peanuts, which I found out after I discovered one swooping in to steal them out of the food mix I would put out for the squirrels I'd released after rehabilitating them. So I think I'll be able to keep this guy around for a while and even have some control of where he arrives using strategic peanut placement. :)

He was here several times this weekend, so I've been keeping my camera handy and managed to get a few half-decent shots (out of DOZENS taken!). Unfortunately, even when I get a pretty good shot of the bird, half the time it's against a background that doesn't do it justice, like this one of him running along my roof:

Or, they're not positioned the best:

Or, there's something random in the way:

Fortunately, nowadays the latter can be dealt with quite effectively using graphics software:

But I also got a few shots in that aren't TOO bad (or, at the very least, they have something interesting about them):

Of course, you may have already noticed that all of these shots were taken when the bird was standing still. And as tough as those were to get, catching one in flight was a WHOLE different ballgame!

My goal is to end up with one similar to the one taken by NaturesDisplay that's at the top of this post (which was the ONLY flying pic at either of the stock photo sites I use, so that was somewhat reassuring...).

One thing to remember about birds, though, is they're freakin' fast! Which is why many of my attempts at catching this guy on the wing ended up along the lines of these (yes, there really IS a bit of the bird in the second one...):

So far, these are the best of the bunch:

But this is just the beginning. I'm determined to get a good shot of this guy in flight before the summer is over!

Stay tuned...

Comments

[Anne]

I like the one where he's leaping off the roof! That's a great shot!

[Elizabeth]

Thanks, Anne. I like it too, but it would have been better if I could have reduced the depth of field more so that the trees in the background wouldn't compete so much with the bird.

[my backyard]

Beautiful bird!

I've got regular blue jays who raid my squirrels' peanuts.