In April of 2012 I spent a week on Dauphin Island, Alabama with the deluded idea that I would be able to photograph songbirds as they rested after crossing the Gulf of Mexico. I have never encountered a more difficult subject to photograph!
Conditions on the island are very difficult for photography. There are lots of trees but the canopy is thin so lots of sky gets through. It is very difficult to isolate a subject against this background. In places where the cover is more dense the birds are in the cover. This Palm Warbler was one of a very few shots I got where the bird stood out from its surroundings.
This Eurasian Collared Dove was an easier subject because it liked to forage on the ground. That made getting closer and isolating the subject much easier. I also suspect that they are permanent residents of the island and are much more accustomed to humans.
The Yellow Palm Warbler, a subspecies of Palm Warbler, has yellow under-parts and is larger than the typical Palm Warbler. I am not sure where they got their name because they are seldom seen in Palm trees.
I took two birding lenses on this outing, a Nikon 200-400 f4 zoom with 1.4X and 2X tele-converters and a Nikon 80-400 lens. The 200-400 is sharper and faster but very heavy and cumbersome to use. The 80-400 is slower in speed and slower in focusing but it is smaller, lighter and can be shot hand held using the IS feature and a fast shutter speed.
I shot with both lenses but much more with the 80-400 zoom. There were several miles of trails around the island and the 200-400 was too large and heavy to be portable. After 4 days of shooting I came away with a handful of "keepers" and 100% were shot with the 80-400 lens. That is the opposite result from my experience shooting shore and wading birds where the 200-400 is more practical and yields consistently better results.
