It’s normally difficult even getting close to these diving ducks from a boat, so when this female Common Scoter came within ten metres of me crouched on rocks on the waters edge I thought I’d actually, for once, manage to get a reasonable shot with a 400mm lens.
Having managed three close up shots before it turned and swam away I was pretty confident of having taken a good record shot. Later, upon viewing the images on the computer, I was more than a little incensed that I’d failed miserably to get the close ups sharp.
Having used single point auto-focusing on the duck’s head, the lens had actually focused on the water behind!
Consequently, I had to resort to heavily cropping a more distant image.
Related pages: Bird posts | British birds gallery