Thank you to everyone for your comments - it seems the Hoopoe is a popular bird and IMO with good reason, it is unusual, lovely and that crest is wonderful when it shows it off !

So thanks for taking the time to say you enjoyed them ; Snappyhappy, Alan (you lucky Sod ! Common as muck huh !), Mat, Darkskies, Roy, Roger, Fatspider, Peter & K10D !

re; EXIF questions.

Yes, I find the K5 & *300 combination, using TAv, seems to over-expose slightly, particularly when shooting against the sky, so I dial the EV compensation back a little.

Also when the light is poor, or unusual, I prefer to choose all the settings myself so often switch to Manual Exposure, a touch of under-exposure is OK to bring the shot back in PP rather than let the camera use a higher ISO value and maybe introduce a little too much noise.

I forgot to change the EV compensation settings when I found the Hoopoes on the ground rather than in the sky for the Heron series I had been shooting !

Herons : link

They seem to have radar and usually I can't get closer than 30-40 yds but for this one I did get within 20 yds (taken with 55-300 - wish I had had the *300 at that time)

Hi Vern.

Firstly I see you are using the K7. I love mine and take them both out (K7 & K5) when I go birding - however I keep the *300 on the K5 as you want the shutter speed as fast as possible to freeze fast wing beats (which is where the high ISO ability of the K5 comes into play), and Mallards are very fast !

On the K5 I use TAv mode as this allows you to set both the shutter speed AND the aperture you want though on the K7 I may use Tv mode since if you lock focus the aperture doesn't matter if your shutter-speed is too slow ... it will be blurred anyway from subject movement. Just make sure to set your maximum ISO values through the menu first.

In those shots above it seems you were using AV mode which selected 1/1,000 for the Mallard shot I checked. Too slow. For BIF I shoot at least 1/1,500 and preferably 1/2.000 (though a little slower is OK for slower wing-beat birds) usually f8 though that will come down to even f4 as the light fades, and for the K7 ISO's up to 800 (you could stretch to 1,600) max, on the K5 up to 5,000.

Give it a try ... hope it works for you !

Lovely shot ! I do love these little birds.

it sure is beautiful stuff Tim.

I like handlebars & six eyes the best but if I may suggest two things 1) don't overdo the rotation bit and 2) get more people looking at the camera or involved / doing in something of interest in itself.

Oops must have reached the limit of images per post - here is the last one :

This is with the 300 so the bird must have been between 80 & 100 yds away by then, yet still in focus and tracking perfectly.

[IMG]http://frogfish.smugmug.com/Other/Test-Shots/Hoopoe-3/1228069909_mbrBc-M.jpg[/IMG]

Whilst for some these birds may be commonplace I haven't seen them for many years, and then I read on a bird blog that a pair had been spotted at Shanghai Zoo (this zoo is not your normal zoo - there are copses, ponds and huge tree lined fields and it's easy to walk around for an hour or so without even seeing an enclosure - hence heaven for much of the local and passerine birds). So off I went and after 3 hours of shooting other wild birds and some squirrels (and as most other people had left and the light was fading) I decided to call it a day. I was walking back through a field that earlier had been full of school children, and now not a soul, when suddenly from behind there was a whoosh and lo and behold the Hoopoe couple swooped past my head and landed not 20 yards (metres) in front of me - talk about luck !

K5 & DA*300. ISO 320 - 500 / F4 / 1/500

[IMG]http://frogfish.smugmug.com/Other/Birds/Hoopoe/1228076501_ZGkFD-XL.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://frogfish.smugmug.com/Other/Birds/Hoopoe/1228036152_BMGxK-XL.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://frogfish.smugmug.com/Other/Birds/Hoopoe/1228000495_SBKgt-XL.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://frogfish.smugmug.com/Other/Birds/Hoopoe/1228041357_4UWgQ-XL.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://frogfish.smugmug.com/Other/Birds/Hoopoe/1228068330_zNWyy-XL.jpg[/IMG]

Unfortunately I had reduced the shutter speed to give me better ISO levels for the feeding shots and when they suddenly took off I could do nothing but snap away knowing they were going to be blurred. However it did show two things 1) how lovely these birds are in flight and 2) how good the K5 & DA*300 are at tracking BIF .... look at how far away and how small in the shot the Hoopoe is in the last of these 3 shots.

[IMG]http://frogfish.smugmug.com/Other/Test-Shots/Hoopoe-1/1228069702_vxfQ2-M.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://frogfish.smugmug.com/Other/Test-Shots/Hoopoe-2/1228069760_tPudA-M.jpg[/IMG]

Great addition that last shot - unique is not too strong a word. I wouldn't crop out anything - Robin shots are 10 a penny but a Nuthatch and a Robin face to face ? One in a million.

That is one gorgeous shot. There are only two things I'd do :

1) clone out the bird just above the first 'little' tree on the bottom right.
2. Print and frame it.