The picture of this Clapper Rail was taken at the Oceanside Nature Center. I took this picture while on a wonderful digital camera workshop with the New York City Audubon Camera Club led by David Speiser to the Oceanside Nature Center.
We had a perfect photo weather day with a bright overcast sky pretty much all morning. I have taken quite a few workshops with David Speiser through the New York City Audubon Club and always learn so much about photo technique and practice. For me there is no substitute for working in the field with a good professional photographer so that he can see what I need to improve and offer appropriate suggestions.

The picture of this Eastern Kingbird was taken in Prospect Park May 20, 2010. Since this Eastern Kingbird was out in the open on a post with a field of grass behind it with really good light, this picture basically shot itself. The challenges that I experience wth the CANON EOS7D disappear when all of the good shooting elements are in place. My only concern is to get as close to the bird as I can without having it fly off. In this case it was within 10 feet of this Eastern Kingbird.
After shooting this picture with the CANON EOS7D in RAW, I do some processing in Adobe Lightroom. I have found that the pictures come in very soft and by using the sharpening tools in Adoboe LIghtroom first makes a big difference. I now rarely use the Clarity and Vibrance tools as they tend to introduce more noise.
I bring the bird picture into Adobe Photoshop CS3 for more editing and sizing and preparing for internet and in this case I go back to Adobe Lightroom and use the vignetting tool to add a small postcrop vignette.

The picture of this Rose-breasted Grosbeak was taken in Prospect Park, Brooklyn. I used my CANON EOS7D with my Canon 100-400 f4.5-5.6L IS USM Telephoto Zoom Lens lens to make this capture. When taking pictures while walking around a large park such as Prospect Park, it is very convenient to use a zoom lens vs a fixed focus lens. The Canon 100-400 zoom lens allows me the versatility to get fairly close when necessary and have the benefit of the 400 mm for those small birds that are farther away. Coupled with the CANON EOS7D 1.6 crop factor, the Canon EF 100-400 lens covers me in many situations where I literally have seconds to get the shot of the bird.