Thrush-stration

Just to show the difficulty I'm having catching a photo of the Varied Thrush with a grape, here is a series of photos I shot awhile ago with the camera set on continuous shoot mode. These are in the order I shot them, continuously, no frames missing......


Notice in the last frame the bird is flying right at the top of the photo. And one grape was missing. (I keep track.) And I don't need to point out that nothing is in sharp focus anyway.

But I got ahead of myself. My strategy for today was to get in position before daylight (I did that), and wait an hour for the thrush to come to the grapes (I waited 2 hours). Then if it didn't show, the next phase of strategy was to set up my bird cam, motion camera. A birder (Tripp Davenport) arrived just then, so I left him at the oasis on thrush patrol to go up to the house for my bird cam. I was determined to at least confirm it was the thrush plucking the grapes. I was gone 15 minutes. When I got back Tripp had seen and photographed the bird eating a grape. I was ready to yank out my hair. So I didn't set up the cam. We sat and waited and that's when I got the above series of shots.