Not that I'm aware of - just eats storage and battery! That said, with a heavy camera, you're unlikely to keep it firmly on target for much of the burst!

I think what's happening is the long focal length allowing distant shots is giving a much greater depth of being in focus, combined with decent sunlight, and often trees in the full frame that are the right sort of distance way (these are massively cropped down from the full frames). This gives a better chance of the auto-focus getting it right. Also, swallows do have slower glide phases in their flight which can help to get on target. What I was forgetting is to try burst shooting to up my chances.

Yes, there's both buzzards and kites around here - very similar life-styles.

Thanks for continuing the story!

Nice shot, but are osprey nests always that rough & ready?

I think it fairly obvious that the first European settlers in North America were far from Ornithologists :)

As you've most likely already seen to find those links, Red-tailed hawks and (what I think of as) a Buzzard share a genus Buteo.

OK, that would be a danger to my wallet!

TY

And look well-nigh identical to the UK Magpie - though the Latin name is different.

A young one from yesterday for contrast:

No scolding that I noticed :)

Happily, Prospect Park often gives a good distance view, so I can see them coming, especially if circling - even so, I often lose focus especially when "close" overhead. There's also the curse of shooting dark subjects against bright sky - my camera's auto settings would have this photo as little more than a silhouette, but happily shooting in RAW allowed a decent recovery.

Looking back at my old photos from various locations, that "not round pupil" thing in wood pigeons seems more often present than not. I wasn't something I'd looked previously out for.

Yay, I'm glad for you!

Really nice to get that angle - I'd guess you were half way up a mountain at the time.

You will be shocked to know even the mother can walk through those bars.

Thanks - thought you'd have to have a huge pixel count otherwise.

Anyway, hoping to walk to a new spot when photoing birds, and not expecting it to flow off, is a mug's game :)

I like the way you've shown the context in one photo, the bird in the other. Is that just digital zoom or two photos and an optical zoom?

The sparrow was just pure good luck, and a bit of a surprise when I reviewed the photo!

And I suppose to complete it, House Martins from the same group gathering the mud in the harbour

It is indeed a Canon, and using Canon's DPP4 to correct the over-exposed whites using the RAW format of pictures. I really ought to research it properly, but I'm guessing that different colours (YGB) are reaching over-exposed to different degrees and getting capped. E.g. Blue is very over-exposed, Yellow is a bit over-exposed and Green is only barely over-exposed. Then when I try to bring them back to properly exposed "as one" with the histogram tool or brigtness slider, those caps and degrees are getting messed up, giving a colour balance in a manner that doesn't reflect the original and I get a green tinge.

That, or pay more attention to whites in frame!