I told myself today that, although I am staying at home, I would not take any flower or bird photos. Instead, I would try to take artsy photos of things outside using new and interesting angles. Welllll . . . that didn’t last long. This whole photography thing has got me interested in the birds in my backyard.
I watched the scrub jays poking around in the dirt and then a woodpecker(?) in the neighbors pine tree. Suddenly a robin landed ten feet in front of me- and the jay swooped down to chase him away. I gave up my idea of being artsy and went inside to get my longest lens (70-300mm) in case there was any more interesting bird action. I had one of my custom user settings set up for just such occurrences (aperture priority, continuous autofocus, auto ISO). Today I changed that custom setting from auto ISO to ISO 200, because I really do not like the lack of control using auto ISO. I was playing around in manual, taking flower photos, when all of a sudden, the robin returned, landing on the deck railing. I quickly switched to my custom setting and captured some quick photos as he looked around.
f/5.6, 1/400, ISO 200, 240mm
melinda anderson photography 
What a cutie. And what a great capture. I don’t think he’s a baby, but he looks so baby-like because he’s all puffed up. It doesn’t look like he has a baby beak (usually they have Walt Disney-like beaks which is the clue it’s a baby). Maybe he’s all puffed up because of the encounter with that rascally jay!