For the last two years I’ve come to the conclusion there is a cardinal in our area which has taken up the mission to mock me. It only appears when I either don’t have a camera, or a lens which can’t reach a focal length to do it justice.

This Spring two Blue Jays appeared to have joined the fun, and have been showing up in my back yard in the mornings — always when I’m heading out the door and in a hurry.

I was beginning to resent vibrant-colored birds.

It turns out, however, the Blue Jays are not as capricious as their red hued avian cousins ¹. They weren’t mocking me, they were posing. And this morning they waited around until I could grab my camera, switch my lens, and capture some shots. I had my ISO set high so I could use an excessively fast shutter speed. I figured it would allow me to avoid any motion blur from the animal’s natural jittery nature. This meant I lost some sharpness through noise reduction, but I think I struck a good balance. As they come back I’ll try to do some more experimenting.

The image below was actually shot through our dining room window, so I’m both pleased and surprised with how well it turned out.

Nikon D7000 with 55-300mm lens
ISO 6400
ƒ 5.6
300mm
1/3200 sec