Cute Chick

A couple days ago I was staying in Hawkesbury for work, and after dinner I decided to go for a drive.  I spotted a very interesting church and decided to pull over and take some shots.   As I was taking some shots I noticed a baby Robin that had fallen out of it’s nest, so I picked him up and took a few shots.

I had the Sony NEX with me with the Sony 16mm f2.8 mounted on it, which was very fortuitous as the autofocus and relatively close focus distance made it much easier to shoot the chick in my hand than any of my M Mount lenses.   Unfortunately, as the reviews say, it isn’t a spectacular lens, and its not really sharp at all at f2.8; however  due to the failing light, that’s what I had to use as at 1600 ISO, it was the only f stop that prevented shake.  In the end this shot worked out OK.

When I first chased the Robin chick he (or she or it) squawked a lot and the parents soon came out and started swooping me, however, once I picked it up the was actually quite happy to sit in my hand.  However, a happy Robin chick doesn’t make a good photo, so I gave it a gentle squeeze to make it cry and I peeled off some shots.  Unfortunately, when I was done I couldn’t find the nest, so I put him in the fork of the tree to keep him out of danger, but he was not having it and jumped straight to the ground.  This makes him very vulnerable so I am sure he was eaten by something soon after .

Post Script

The next day I sent this photo to a colleague at work who is known in equal measure for his love of pretty ladies and fear of birds, and copied my other work mates.  So I sent the email entitled “CUTE CHICK!  THIS ONE’S FOR YOU!” and in the text talked about how I had picked up a cute chick; which was quite true.   This was the source of much hilarity at work the next day!