Spotted Dove

[Alan]

Spilopelia chinensis. Moruya Heads
I found this piece of wood on the beach this morning - took it home and placed it in the front garden. A couple of hours later the doves gave it the seal of approval. Felt good to have some birds in the viewfinder again - even if they are an introduced species.
The Spotted Dove is native to eastern Asia. It was introduced into Australia in the mid-1800s and early 1900s and quickly became established. It is now a common sight throughout eastern Australia, and around the major towns and cities in southern and south-western Australia. (Birds in Backyards)

D90 300mm f/4 Nikon. 1/1600 f/5 800 ISO Tripod. I had to shoot this through two glass doors, (my stupid fault), so the IQ could have been better, but it scrubbed ok for amazingly, my first photo of this common species?

[loose cannon]

Isn't bird photography a wonderful hobby.

Beautiful crisp clean image, hats off to both the photographer and house cleaner.

Maybe a bird bath located nearby would be a good idea to attract birds to the new perch?

[Alan]

Thanks Mick - a wonderful and frustrating addiction for sure.

but Mick, you should know me better by now

I think that piece of wood might become a bit familiar for awhile - until I find a better one

Cheers

[loose cannon]

Ah yes, I should've assumed...

[Ironwood]

If you hadn't said you were shooting through glass doors, I never would have picked it, looks great to me. Those eyes look eerily sharp. Which model 300f4 are you using Alan?

[Alan]

Thanks. I didn't realise that there might be different models. It's about 3 years old. On the lens it says AF-S Nikkor 300mm ED. It doesn't have Image Stabilisation. I often use it with either a x1.3 or x1.7 teleconverter and normally set to f/7.1 Just love it - the sharpness is dangerous - even better on my D7000

[Ironwood]

Cheers Alan. I almost bought one of those lenses, I ended up getting the Tamron 150-600 instead, not sure I made the right choice.

There is an older one as well, with the screw drive AF and the drop-in filters, you can pick them up fairly cheaply at times, and now there is also the new one with VR, which is said to be very good, very light weight apparently as well. The new one is more expensive than the Tamron, but I think the image quality would be worth the extra dollars, even with using a TC.

[P Plates]

How beautiful. They remind me a bit of the Peaceful Dove we see a lot around here.

[Alan]

Thanks Gabby. Yes, they do look similar

[Phoenix]

Difficult to tell that was through a glass door indeed.
I like pairs pose as it shows off their gorgeous spotted marking while still great eye contact.