The Winter Wren has always impressed me as a mouse with wings. It scuttles through brush piles like a mouse. It tunnels through standing grass like a mouse. It even, when glimpsed from the coroner of your eye (unfortunately the most common view) looks like a mouse…until it flicks those wings and flies. (Okay it is a little beaky for a mouse, but you get the idea.)

Catching one, as they used to say “on film”…I guess that would be “on sensor” today, is not easy. They are in constant motion. I was delighted then to find one hoping around in a brush pile (typical) by the back pond on trails behind Lighthouse State Park in Cape May. I would never have attempted digiscoping a Winter Wren, but with the long zoom on the Canon SX40HS, wren shots are more possible. Above is at 840mm equivalent optical zoom plus 1.5x digital extender for 1260mm equivalent field of view. f5.8 @ 1/500th @ ISO 200.

Another view of the same bird, this time without the 1.5x digital extender. I might note that I am shooting in continuous mode, at around 3 fps with a fast Class 10 SD card, so these images are selected out of bursts of several shots.

840mm equivalent, f5.8 @ 1/500th @ ISO 200.

And finally another bird in even more difficult circumstances (for photography).

840mm equivalent, f5.8 @ 1/200th @ ISO 800. Clearly this shot was a challenge for the focus system as well as the exposure system. And the image quality at ISO 800 is impressive. I am having a lot of fun with the Canon SX40HS.

All lightly processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.