February 13! short trip into near future. Italian blue sky already smells of spring

This post goes for 'Show me a photo (of a bird)' contest, round #203. Week's topic was 'Birds in the sky' - and I immediately remembered a series of photos I took on February 13, 2024 - almost exactly one year ago!

These are not necessarily outstanding photos, but I really liked them back at the time for this spring mood, and Italian blue sky (I have never been to Italy; in particular, I have not visited Florence, Rome and Naples). Such a sky does not come to my city often even in summer! Not to mention winter... (In the beginning of the year, all of January, it seems, did not have a single sunny day!) Only dull rainy weather and gray sky entertain us every day.

Below is uncropped version of the photo.

And this one... wasnt it a secret message I had to decode, what do you think?

Well, actually it was not. I just photoshopped it from a single seagull (you see it in the center of photo). All the rest are absolutely the same, as you may notice. No AI was involved, only my own eyes and hands.

What else to add? That day I had with me a 70-200mm lens, which I use for ambushes on the streets and hunting human game (that is, for the genre of street photography), but its long end served me for this session. The morning sun, which had recently risen from behind the horizon, illuminated the plumage of the birds so wonderfully with its slanting rays that it seemed that the birds were flying higher than the sun. I met a small flock of seagulls that greeted the morning, the rising sun, a new day... not me - they did not care about me at all.

I wonder how these will look like in monochrome, maybe I would love it better than original coloured versions? Never tried it (yet). Have to do a research and will share the results with you, in a proper community. What do you think?

The seagulls were flying quite high, and 200 mm did not allow us to talk about any magnification. This series of photographs is not about examining the plumage in flight - it is rather... a portrait of seagulls from the outside, against the background of the approaching spring? I do not know exactly, but one way or another, this small session - 24 frames, a little less than a standard roll of film - awakens in me pleasant memories of February 13th last year (almost Valentine's Day!)

Oh, and a little bit of info that you may find intresting - the last but not the least, as they say.

As I mentioned above - I took 24 captures, and 23 of them turned out well-focused! It was only one photo where the camera's auto-phocus did not do the job and put the focus at the wire instead of the birdies. All the rest - the aims were moving, not sitting still! - turned out pretty well. This 70-200mm lens (L series!) is a killer, real deal; it definitely can produce some good birding photography for you, if you are not a happy 400-600mm lens hoarder 😜 Let me round up my blog here. Hope you enjoyed all this monotonous crystal clear floating like a feather stuff. See you! 🐈

---

---

All images taken by me, copyright (c) @qwerrie

My posts at worldmappin

Thanks for visiting my blog!