Eastern Bluebird: Kennebunk, Maine, USA, January 2026 — This is another hard-to-get shot, in a totally different way than yesterday’s Cardinal deep in the brush. The first round of feeder birds often comes just at dawn, just as the sky lights up behind the feeders, and we have had glowing sunrises many mornings recently. A week or so ago, I thought, “I wonder if I could catch a bird on a perch against the light of the rising sun?” and I have been watching for the right timing these many days, bringing the camera to the kitchen as I write my morning posts and drink my decaf coffee, just to be ready. Yesterday, the sky was right, and the birds cooperated. I had to use the flip-out LCD screen on the camera to get a low enough angle to frame the bird against the dawn glow, but I got off several shots of bluebirds and finches. This is my favorite, even though the bird looking out of frame gives it a unique tension. From a technical standpoint, shooting in this kind of low light required a high ISO, 12800, to maintain a shutter speed of 1/500th (the camera handles those settings for me…I do not have to think about it in the moment). The image is quite satisfying, technically, I think, considering the challenges. And it pretty much satisfies my vision when I first thought about the possibility. Not exactly what I saw in my mind’s eye, but then that is part of the fun of doing real-world photography. AI could maybe have generated something closer to what I envisioned, but not this unique vision of a real bird doing the unexpected against a real dawn sky. Sony a6700. Sigma 16-300 at 433mm equivalent field of view. Program with bird and wildlife modifications. +.7EV for backlight. Processed in Photomator. (no noise reduction).