Since entering the spring, there have been more and more birds in Taiyuan Wetland Park, and among these birds, the smallest, the largest number, the fastest jumping, and the happiest call, I feel that in addition to the sparrow is this little brown-headed crow.
The brown-headed jay is a bird with a total length of about 12 cm, brownish red from the top of the head to the upper back, olive brown on the upper body, reddish brown wings, dark brown tail, pink throat and chest, and pale yellowish brown on the rest of the lower body.
It feeds mainly on insects such as beetles, weevils, pine caterpillar eggs, bugs, coleoptera and lepidoptera, but also eats other small invertebrates such as spiders and plant fruits and seeds.
They often move in small groups, sometimes in groups of 20 or more or more in autumn and winter. Sexually lively and bold, not very afraid of people, often climbing and jumping between shrubs or small branches and leaves, or flying from one tree to another, generally flying at a short distance and low altitude, not doing long-distance flight. Often flying or jumping at the same time, the song is low and rapid, mainly distributed in a large area from the northeast to the southwest to the east, which is a relatively common resident bird.
The brown-headed jay finch is mainly distributed in China, the population is relatively rich, the trend is stable, so it is evaluated as a species without survival crisis. However, it is internationally listed on the IUCN's 2012 Red List of Threatened Species ver 3.1 – Low Risk (LC) level.
Although the number of brown-headed crows is large, but the difficulty of shooting is still relatively large, which mainly has the following two reasons, one is that it is more active in the trees and grasses, the environment is relatively complex and chaotic, and the other is that it is often in a process of jumping or flying, which has higher requirements for the equipment, technology and patience of our photography enthusiasts, which requires our equipment to have a strong enough focus ability, requiring us to have enough understanding of photography technology.
Among them, when shooting, the most important thing is the choice of focus method and focus point, my recommendation is to use continuous autofocus mode (Canon camera is artificial intelligence servo AF mode, Nikon camera AF-C mode), focus point is used single point expansion, generally do not recommend the use of auto focus selection focus, otherwise, the camera is very likely to focus on other debris such as the nearest branch.
In addition, you can shoot in spot metering, daylight white balance and continuous shooting modes, and finally, your patience and luck depend on your patience and luck in the face of the extremely unsettled brown-headed crows that jump around.
How about picking up the camera and trying it out by the river...