I was waiting for a "jumping off" shot of the Red-shouldered hawk when the Robin just appeared so wasn't really prepared for two birds in the frame. Taking time to change camera settings would have risked loosing the shot I wanted.

Ignoring the focus issues (f5.6 @ 1/2000th didn't have sufficient depth of field to cover both birds), what's with the back of the hawk and the breast of the Robin? I've never encountered this effect before.

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You nailed it. The mode was miss-set. Thanks Linda

The clone stamp tool seems to have developed a mind of it's own. Instead of copying the selected area as it is the tool produces a 10 shades lighter version of what I select. I've no idea what precipitated this change and nothing I've done seems to effect it. Help.

I occasionally use the 1.4 teleconverter with a 200-500 on My D500. I'm pretty exclusively a bird photographer and have found that it produces good, sharp images in strong light with good contrast but tends to go soft in anything but bright sunlight.

SOLD/Collector's special from my grandfather's estate, 10 Kodak cans (PanX, PlusX, TriX, Kodachrome, and generic) and one no-name can. Asking $20.00 cash, check or money order.

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Plasti-dip spray or spray on truck bed liner (paint dept. @ Home Depot) would be a quick and easy solution.

Nice flight captures but not Cooper's hawks. Both the flying and perched birds are immature Red-tails who, judging by their bulging crops, have just eaten a very large meal.

Definitely a Northern Harrier. The cinnamon breast feathers indicate an immature bird.

This is a very odd looking set up. I'd recommend the a Kirk lens support system I've been using with my 200-500 on a Nikon D500. It's far from cheap but a very high quality piece of equipment. My copy and paste doesn't seem to be working but you can find it by looking up the 200-500 lens on the Kirk web site: www.kirkphoto.com

You might want to take a look at abebooks.com. They have several used copies available, some under $10.00, but not sure whether or not they are updated for the mkll.

I do believe you are correct. I have trouble with the immatures of these two species when they're perched and the Broad-wings around me tend to be much more heavily streaked.

Neither a Coopers nor a Red-tail. A Red-tail would be showing the tell-tale "belly band." This is an immature Red-shouldered hawk.

I'm basically a bird photographer with an emphasis on birds in flight and for me back button focus is a godsend. My Nikon D500 allows me to program the sub selector as a second back button focus control so that I have two back button focus buttons next to each other, one for group area focus for birds in flight and one for single point focus for perched birds. Works like a charm. In terms of presetting focus for birds in flight, I prefocus on something I think is about the same distance away as birds I'm likely to see and then hit the back button when I've got the bird in the focus area. It takes a little getting used to but soon becomes automatic.

This is a juvenile Red-tailed hawk.