We get a good variety of warblers in the backyard. While most are here year-round, these palm warblers call our little island home during the non-breading times.

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Rainy and cool

If you look back at my post, you may recognize the branch. We have a dead tree that provides a great overlook on the marsh for birds. It's like their version of a community bench.

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Belted Kingfishers are hard to approach. They are fast and gone in an instant. I was already set up when this beauty landed.

Great shot!

I totally understand about the backlight/silhouette situation. You did a good job for sure. I sort of do the same thing on the fly with my old Nikon D810. I use spot metering in manual mode but let the ISO float in auto with an EV +0.7, or even higher on really bright days. It blows the sky out a bit more but the slightly higher ISO the +EV setting forces brings out the details of the bird in the RAW file SOOC.

For the D810 sensor, the EV+0.7 seems to compensate for the overly bright background nicely in most cases. Using the EV setting to control exposure allows me to quickly switch from the "normal" EV-0.3 I use when the the background is not so overbearing without having to mess with shutter or f-stop.

My typical settings for a bright day on the shore start with something like 1/4000" f/8.0 ISO Auto (EV+0.7)

I know you may have your own technique down pat but thought I would explain how to get a similar result for anyone still trying to deal with this particular situation.

This Phoebe likes to hangout in the deadwood that overhangs the marsh. It's a good spot to zero in on bugs zipping around. The distant spartina grass of the marsh give it an excellent bokeh.

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The image is very underexposed. When I bring more of the bird out the colors get muddy and unnatural.

I have arranged my backyard habitat so there are a couple of Shepard's hooks close to each feeder. Makes the wife happy to have a place for hanging baskets and gives birds a place to wait for a turn at the feeder. The late afternoon sun here is the Golden Isles paints everything in a beautiful soft light. Makes dropping out the background a snap.

It was very overcast the other morning before a rain shower. The neutral colors of the mockingbird bird made it pop against the darker greens. I can't say enough about spot metering when capturing birds.

LOL,it was another male merganser.

Great capture!

Mr. Hooded Merganser giving the look.

This GBH was on the seawall yesterday in a late afternoon mist that sucked the blues right out of the image. The gray of the water, the heron looking for a fish, and the softness given by the mist make it seem as if the heron is lost in its thoughts.

Not right now, but I do in spring.

The Eastern Bluebirds love when you put mealworm in a platform feeder.