Winning Image & Story
Squabbling Jays by Tina Boswell
I have to admit to having a soft spot for these corvids. Cheeky and clever, I could watch their antics for hours. Which was a benefit on this particular day.
This image was taken early September last year. We had gone up to Penny Hedge between Blairgowrie and Glenshee with the intention of capturing pine martens, and had decided to spend the whole day there to shoot whatever was around. It’s a long wait for darkness to fall for the Pine Martens so having a front row seat to highland wildlife was a bonus. If you haven’t been there then I can highly recommend a visit for red squirrels a hefty collection of birds and the Pine Martens if you’re lucky, and amazing home baking!
These Jays were in as soon as the nuts appeared. They tended to come in one at a time but these two appeared and wanted the nuts to themselves from the start and it made for quite a collection of squabbling images with the birds at various heights above the rock. Obviously you don’t have time to worry about composition, wings and feet were everywhere, the pair were just left of centre from my position in the hide so I had a good view and just shot in bursts. Oh the joys of mirrorless cameras you can shot away in silent mode so the birds just don’t get spooked by shutter noise and carry on. I am a Nikon shooter and on this day was using my Z8 with my 300mm prime and I used a beanbag. 1/2500 sec helped freeze the wing action and I shot it wide open at f4 with ISO 200.
Post processing wise I did very little, a rectangular crop which centered the pair and I lifted the blue, yellow and green a little. All in Lightroom Classic.
Tina
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