Tell a story:  I have a male black-chinned hummer which fiercely protects "his" feeder. I knew the second an intruder was in the area by his wide-flying arcs and deep dives.

This one also show the hills but a close up on the bird. It needs more room to fly into. :-)

Habitat: This photo of an Albatros in Hawaii, show the pretty, lush hills near  their nesting site. It is a protected area with a huge fence around it.

I've just spent far too long browsing my 'bloopers'! This last lesson from Melissa has really expanded my thinking on the storytelling aspect of bird photography. I was already aware of that aspect but even more so now.

I was out walking along the Queenscliff (south coast of Victoria Australia) pier that houses an old dilapidated boat shed at the end of it. On several occasions I've noticed a few galahs hanging around here later in the day. I watched one displaying some unusual behaviour — alighting on the side of the building and continuously poking its head into a hole, then looking around. Then it became apparent what was going on! Hope the photos tell the story.

The Crested Caracara is what made me pull over for this shot. After that I noticed the mockingbird that was relentlessly harassing the caracara. Mockingbirds are know for their fierce protection of their territory and nesting area, often taking on much larger birds, animals and even humans. In the end the mockingbird won and the caracara flew away. These were taken during harsh Texas afternoon sun so I did work with shadows and highlights to soften up some.

I had one of those moments that Melissa mentioned in her video - I shot this young common kestrel flying away from me rather than towards me and was a little disappointed. The funny thing is he was on his way to inspect a red squirrel on the ground (unfortunately I didn't get a good photo of that!). But when I was looking through the photos it jumped out at me as being intriguing. The bird is flying into the darkness (which looks almost like a cave) with its bright yellow legs dangling below it.

Two photos, both of which capture habitat rather than just the bird, and one of which has unusual lighting. The first, a Killdeer at South Cape May Meadows, leaves the bird in a smaller area of the picture (but still using rule of thirds) to show more of the wetlands habitat. The second, a backlit juvenile Bald Eagle, was actually just a quick iPhone snapshot to show the location (near Belle Haven Marina on the Potomac River), but the symmetry of the trees and the silhouette of the Eagle made for an interesting picture.

For the last 4 evenings I have gone to a location where I can sit and observe the birds fly in, forage, and engage in interesting behavior.  Between 7 and 8 pm I have found at least 5 Snowy Egrets, 2 Black-necked Stilts, 2 Black-crowned Night Herons, and on the first evening 5 Black Skimmers skimming.  Also a couple of Black Phoebes that fly in and perch on a close snag.  Grackles abound, also a Mallard with chicks, and Red-winged Blackbirds.  This is a marshy area that I drive to and then walk about 500 yards to a viewing platform. This is a well-known birding location in Santa Barbara -   Andree Clark Bird Refuge.

I'm using a Canon 7D Mark 2 with a very old 100-300 lens ( from film days) with a 1.4 adapter.  I've just completed the lesson on "telling a story", so I shoot a lot - (RAW) in burst mode (AI Servo).  This is the first time I've tried shooting in Manual mode, setting my aperture to F8 (the widest available to me).  The light is coming from behind me and the side as the sun is setting.  Since I am not usually able to adjust my settings rapidly enough I get many photos (of the white egrets) that are very overexposed, and as the light fails my shots of the Black-crowned Nights Herons that suddenly flew out of the reeds where they were hiding these shots were quite underexposed.

There is one series of shots in which 2 Snowy Egrets were actively engage with one another.  This occurred suddenly and at first I though this was dominance behavior, but is has occurred to me rather that it is mating behavior, something I've never observed before.

I have used the editing software provided with my Canon camera to edit the photos.  I don't have Lightroom and my Photoshop is very old.  All in all this has been a very interesting and challenging learning experience.  I have posted a large group of my selected  images on Flickr - where I have a PRO account.  https://www.flickr.com/photos/digolov/.  Scroll down until you find the Skimmer, always an exciting find for me.

Would love to have feedback.  Dika Golovatchoff, Santa Barbara, CA.  July 8, 2020.

I spotted a pair of Carolina wrens gathering nesting material. They were on the top of a link fence and were building the nest, next to a light, on top of a speaker on the porch, which I thought was odd, given the amount of alternative natural sites on the property. I have since learned they are quite prone to nesting in domesticated areas. I thought the contrast of the habitat opposed to nature was interesting. I also chose to take a shot from behind one of them for a change from the norm.

I went to a nearby reservoir and bird Reserve yesterday evening to catch waterfowl and shore birds in the sunset, but ended up spending over an hour with a family of Rock Wrens. They were quite friendly and let me hang out with them until sunset.  I have several classically composed takes from the session but I pulled aside a few that I thought were interesting. The first shows the wren nestled next to a rock and has some unusual shadowing.  The second is of one wren in immediate flight off of a rock.

I have come to be extremely fond of environmental photos of birds as opposed to bird portraits and try to capture as much of the environment as possible while still keeping the bird or birds sharply defined, even if small in the frame. Two examples are the backlit Whimbrei and the Pied Avocets with their distinctive black and white patches and curved bills. I also like capturing stories as this one  in a series depicting Nazca Boobys courting and nest building.