Sunday bird blogging

A gray catbird pauses on a bench in the Ramble.

Every time I go through a new batch of bird pictures, I wonder why I keep trying. There are brilliant photographs of birds all over the web, and mine are never more than passable.

But I do love the challenge. Any idiot with a decent camera and access to Photoshop can take great pictures of the reflections in windows; the worst that can happen is that you miss the best light. And in that case, you can usually go back. Buildings are so beautifully sedentary.

Birds, on the other hand, are in constant motion. They sit on branches obscured by leaves, or they dig for dinner in the mulch on the ground, and they fly away the minute you get a decent angle. The trees are thick in the Ramble, so it's dark as well, but birds tend not to like it if you use a flash. In fact they display no interest in cooperating with photographers whatsoever.

I don't have a huge zoom lens like some of the photographers I run into in the park, but I don't think it would help me much. This catbird landed ten feet from where I was sitting and stayed there long enough for me to get this picture, and it's still a little blurry.