Woodchat Shrike

This is a cousin of the Loggerhead Shrike, a common bird of the Western USA. The Woodchat Shrike is significantly smaller and more colorful, but behaves very similarly to the Loggerhead (“butcher bird”). This was taken in Northern Portugal last month. This is one of the first images I have processed that was taken with the Canon 800 mm f/11.0 lens. It was mounted on a Canon R5. Certainly not the quality of other prime lenses, but I found that European birds were much more difficult to approach on foot than those in North or South America. Hence, many of the shots were taken hand held from a car window. The birds would tolerate the car, but as soon as you even cracked the door, away they went. The super light-weight 800 mm lens was certainly easy to use in this setting. Because of the fixed aperture and low light (late afternoon) this was shot at 1/1250 sec, f/11.0, and ISO of 1250. I used an EC of -.3 and should have gone to -.6.