bird feeder

I picked the title photo of this post from a long series of photos I took while observing sparrows on a bird feeder in a small park in the center of Toronto. I picked this specific one because it reminds me of some old paintings that depict the one decisive moment of a story.

So many things are happening: the bird on the right is falling and getting ready to flap its wings to switch to flying. The one on the right desperately holds on and sprays little food pieces while trying to get at what's inside the feeder.

The fact that the sparrows were reliably flying around the feeder and had to work against the gusty wind gave me a great opportunity to take photos of flying sparrows. Usually, that's quite difficult because of quick changes in direction and because of the short flights they usually take.

I had to crop quite a bit, but I got this picture of a flying sparrow. Even at 1/1600 s shutter time the wing tips still show some motion blur. But I feel that's good for the picture, because it gives some sense of the bird's movement.