Close encounters

After staying at school, and taking pictures of birds for weeks, I’ve been gradually improving at spotting, identifying and capturing a bird. And it has become an instinct for me to look up, to look for birds around the campus

One day after school (20/10), I was shooting at school when a chubby female oriental magpie robin landed on the branches of a bush right in front of me. This species of bird is not particularly afraid of humans so sometimes you can get pretty close to them, around 1-2 meters. But this guy was within reaching distance and it unbelievably stayed as I pointed my camera at it and snapped these pictures:

Freaked out and forgot to fully zoom in

Still staying and peering at me

Fully zoomed in

My Coolpix p950 has a focal length equivalent of 24-2000mm, and this is what the bird looks like up close (unfortunately slightly blurry)

The saying goes: “If you have captured the reflection within a bird’s eye, you can consider yourself a successful bird photographer".” I guess I succeeded at that moment

What is even more impressive is that my camera takes a lot of time to process the pictures I take with continuous shooting, and this bird stayed as my camera was loading. The whole interaction lasted for 1-2 minutes

It even stayed to show off some of its moves

Having close encounters with birds are very special and unique moments that’ll stick with you for a lifetime

During the exam week of my first-term exams, I stayed behind after a Friday to relax a bit and photograph some birds. I headed out towards the open field and decided to scout out a strip of trees and bushes surrounding the field in the middle

As I approached the greenery, I was immediately greeted with a cacophony of various bird calls. There is a berry tree planted on the edge of these bushes (it’s close to me), and I saw some bulbuls swarming over the tree, cleaning off all the hanging berries on the tree

The red-whiskered and light-vented bulbuls are among the most common birds in Hong Kong, and they are also less timid and won’t shy away unless you are way too close, like the oriental magpie-robin. I slowed my pace and approached the tree slowly, hoping not to scare off the bulbuls. But to my disbelief, some of them jumped down from the tree onto the bushes to greet me themselves

Managed to capture the red-whiskered bulbul with a berry in its beak

Funny angle of the bulbul from atop the tree

Light-vented bulbul looking up to the heavens

Shutter speed still ain’t exactly fast enough for freezing their beaks in frame

Although these birds are the most common ones in Hong Kong, excluding pigeons and sparrows, these close-up experiences with them will always have a special place in my heart

This just goes to show why bird photography is 80% luck

Thanks for reading :)