Snow and urban birding

We have finally got our yearly snow. Only 2cm and only for a few days, but suddenly everything feels fresher, lighter and easier.

The day before yesterday I decided to take advantage of the nice weather and went out hunting birds with my camera. I stayed out for several hours until the cold and a very tired left arm from holding the camera drove me back home. What I really need to learn and work on now is to be able to focus fast on the birds with the lens in manual mode. When the birds are sitting in a tree, the auto focus doesn't know if it should focus on branches or birds. And it doesn't work with me just saying: no,no,no, the BIRD, not that branch!
Well, maybe one day there will be a voice-active lens that would be able to focus on anything you want just by giving a command. Then you would be able to hear me walking around repeating 'bird', 'flower', 'leaf', 'bird' over and over again…

I have seen 3 new bird species the last month: Oriental greenfinch, Yellow-billed Grosbeak and Naumann's Thrush. I hope to see them again while I have my camera with me!

Daurian redstart. I have seen this bird many times here in Rizhao, but this was the first time that I got a good picture of it.

Silhouette.

I love the background to this sparrow.

Light-vented Bulbul. He was posing for quite some while for me, for once more curious than shy.

The quality of this photo is bad, I'm afraid. She sat very high up and I took the photo against the light. But when I zoomed in on the photo at home I realized that I have never seen this bird before, and look at that impressive beak!! It is a female Yellow-billed Grosbeak.

Then some studio updates as promised:

Here I have a Blue-and-white swallow and a Kestrel. The swallow is waiting for it's final layer of paint, while the kestrel only have it's first layer laid down.

A swan and a titmouse both waiting for more layers.

Backgrounds.

Two pages from my art journal with some ideas and sketches for sparrows.

More to follow soon.