Judy, Thank you for looking. I'm not really a 'birder'; I mostly just 'shoot' the back yard residents but decided to take advantage of the showing as it was only about eight miles from our home.

All the birds at the show were rescued and can't be released into the wild. They think this Eagle was hit by a car or truck; he was found alongside the road and had a broken right wing that didn't heal properly so can't fly well enough to hunt, but he sure can flap around a lot. I had to wait for some time before he settled down into a pose I liked.

Judy, Thank you for looking. I'm not really a 'birder'; I mostly just 'shoot' the back yard residents but decided to take advantage of the showing as it was only about eight miles from our home.

All the birds at the show were rescued and can't be released into the wild. They think this Eagle was hit by a car or truck; he was found alongside the road and had a broken right wing that didn't heal properly so can't fly well enough to hunt, but he sure can flap around a lot. I had to wait for some time before he settled down into a pose I liked.

I turned this week's challenge into a personal challenge to get a true "portrait", using an MF 50mm Super Tacumar lens, of each of the felines that lives with us. It took a lot more time than I expected.

Leila adopted me five years ago at the cat pound after a previous cat (*) had died of lymphoma {obviously, I am skipping a lot of unneeded details here}. She is my buddy, but she is also a cat. I started off with her on her favorite perch on the cat tree - an hour, and just six pictures later, we were both frustrated. After a lunch break, I moved her to a couch and finally got an image I was satisfied with.

Velcro joined our family as a kitten thirteen years ago, as reparation to our two daughters because we were moving out of state soon. She has moved with us four times, and remains my wife's friend. She is kind of timid, so once I had an image of Leila, I limited Velcro's movement around the kitchen {which is where she was} and in a few minutes had a reason image of her in front of the dishwasher.

(*) The previous cat was "Magic", the one in my avatar

added: when I went back into the living room after posting this, I noticed that each of them was sitting in a chair at a reasonable distance off the ground {I'm 68} and with reasonable lighting and reasonable background for a picture. They just had to prove that they really are cats!

I turned this week's challenge into a personal challenge to get a true "portrait", using an MF 50mm Super Tacumar lens, of each of the felines that lives with us. It took a lot more time than I expected.

Leila adopted me five years ago at the cat pound after a previous cat (*) had died of lymphoma {obviously, I am skipping a lot of unneeded details here}. She is my buddy, but she is also a cat. I started off with her on her favorite perch on the cat tree - an hour, and just six pictures later, we were both frustrated. After a lunch break, I moved her to a couch and finally got an image I was satisfied with.

Velcro joined our family as a kitten thirteen years ago, as reparation to our two daughters because we were moving out of state soon. She has moved with us four times, and remains my wife's friend. She is kind of timid, so once I had an image of Leila, I limited Velcro's movement around the kitchen {which is where she was} and in a few minutes had a reason image of her in front of the dishwasher.

(*) The previous cat was "Magic", the one in my avatar

added: when I went back into the living room after posting this, I noticed that each of them was sitting in a chair at a reasonable distance off the ground {I'm 68} and with reasonable lighting and reasonable background for a picture. They just had to prove that they really are cats!