The Azure-Winged Magpie (Onaga • オナガ)
Well, finally. I’ve been trying to shoot one of these guys for a long time, almost as long as I’ve been photographing birds, which is maybe six months now. They’ve been somewhat elusive to me. I got a quick, low-quality shot of one at Tama Reien months ago, and would’ve gotten better had a bicyclist not scared them off. I almost got a beautiful shot of a mother feeding her young on a power line right in front of me, but they scampered off before I could get my camera out.
This time, I wandered into an area where a ton of starlings and pigeons were feeding in a field–upwards of a hundred birds or so–and I noticed a half-dozen or so magpies flying around the fringe of the field. I followed them uphill a bit as they moved, and wound up getting some nice photos.
The first one has two in a tree, and one of them is probably immature, seeing as how the black cap is still somewhat white, probably from baby down.
Here’s what appear to be a few more in intermediate stages:
In this one, the magpie seems rather annoyed at an intruding Oriental Turtledove:
Here are some adults:
And you can really see in this one why the birds are named オナガ (“Onaga,” or “Long Tail”) in Japanese:
The adults look so beautiful among the foliage, it makes their blue feathers appear more brilliant.
Photo #3 is sharply in focus. #4, for example is not. What are the different things that could cause this, and what are the ways of combatting each?
Is #3 good since the camera sees a sharp line from the wire and focuses on it? If so, what can one do about this thrist for lines?
The camera needs more than just a line to focus on; most of the central target of the photo must be at that distance. The best you can do is to focus on something large nearby at the same distance, then re-aim at what you want to shoot while holding the focus. Sometimes it’s just luck.
It’s not just the focus always, though; zoom amount and light levels play into it also. #4 had some digital zoom involved, I believe; #3 was all optical. #3 also had better, direct sunlight, while I think it was more overcast when I shot #4.