Wildlife Photographer? Not Me...

I glanced out of the window this afternoon to see two collared doves on the posh bird feeder, one on the tray and the other sitting right on the top, following the action with very careful attention. What a photo opportunity, I thought. Got the camera, remembered to switch it on before I got to the window, carefelly snuck the window wider open, aimed and fired. Bird on top is out of focus, bird on tray cannot be seen behind windowsill, whole thing is lopsided, etc. Then I remembered that Ron had shown me the zoom facility only last week. My 'subjects' were still posing nicely, so I went back for another go. Unfortunately, I forgot that the zoom is very, very loud, so I got a beautiful close up picture of an empty bird feeder in an empty garden, with two collared doves way in the background (and out of focus) sitting on next door's back fence.

My brother in law takes pictures of bats catching moths and that sort of thing. I'm beginning to understand just how much patience and practice it takes to produce photographs of that sort of quality, when a simple portrait of a posing bird in daylight is beyond me. Still, there are collared doves in my garden to add to the list...