I certainly have a greater respect for those people who can shoot photos of birds. These buggers have been all over the back yard and then to the front yard and they buzzed all over the place. This was the best one I could get. One bird was in our large Christmas tree int he front yard and popped its head out of the branches for an iconic photo. Then within a second it was gone. No way I could have gotten that one in time.
So instead I went after slower subjects, like this Rhododendron.
I’ve been using iPhoto to bring up the light in many of my bird shots because it snows all the time (literally) so it’s always cloudy. You have the same problem here that I do with chickadees: I can hardly ever get their little eyes to show up out of their black mask.
That was pretty much the only shot where the bird was actually in the shot. They are so tough to get.