This fellow has been helping to remove the stump in the front yard for a quite a while; today he let me peek around the edge of the door and take a few pictures…
He’s about crow-sized with a much snappier paint job.
Scary-sharp beak!
Taken with a Sony DSC-H5 with their VCL-HGD1758 1.7x teleconverter lens at about 50 feet, then ruthlessly cropped. Not as good as an SLR with a real telephoto lens, but good enough for my simple needs. The teleconverter with a macro lens on the back provides some standoff distance for photos of tabletop widgetry.
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 