I opened the gate into our garden when we returned from our dog walk, to find this young blackbird on the garden table. He must have been surprised when the gate burst open to reveal me and the two dogs, but he just stood looking at us long enough for me to make the dogs lie down, get my camera out of its case, and take three shots. Since I only had an 18-55mm lens, you can see how close we were – I have only had to crop the image slightly. He did come to his senses quite quickly though, and my third shot only captured the bamboo background, not even a shot of him flying off. Birds do seem to be able to spring from sitting still to full flight mode in an instant. I think that he might have been a bit startled by the whole affair – he decorated the patio as he exited stage left.
Impressive shot.