[Click on the images to view in a lightbox.]

We’re looking at a long stretch of especially hot, especially dry weather here in Silverton. We’re in mid-June and it already feels like August. Revisiting this photo, which I took 8 days ago at The Oregon Garden, makes me long for the rain. I got thoroughly soaked that morning watching this warbler. It was great.

This Common Yellowthroat kept coming back to the same cattails and so I was able to photograph it in various positions, including once as it shook the raindrops from its body (see gallery below). I love that my fancy camera and nice lens allow me to get close to birds I only used to see from a distance (when I saw them all), but I’ve been inspired by photographers like Ray Hennessy to pull back sometimes to feature a bird’s habitat. You can see a heavily cropped close-up of the bird here, but my favorite version is the full photograph up top, especially when viewed in a lightbox.

Location: The Oregon Garden

Exposure: 1/100 second, f/5.6, ISO 1800

Focal Length: 500 mm

Gear:

• Camera: Nikon D850

• Lens: Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 500mm f/5.6E PF ED VR