Good light on a perpetual motion bird

A small tree at my mother's backyard in Bacnotan (La Union) is currently teeming with White-eyes, feasting on its berry-like fruit.

Though they're numerous, these tiny birds (a mere 4 inches from tip of bill to tip of tail) are in constant motion, and are tough to nail AF-wise and exposure-wise. I had to patiently wait all day (over the last few weekends) in an improvised blind to get a few decent captures.

 

This last weekend, in the late afternoon, I got very lucky with one particular capture - a beam of golden light managed to pierce the foliage and illuminated a clean perch. Improbably, a White-eye used that spot and lingered for a few seconds - long enough for my AI servo AF to lock well on the head area and for my itchy shutter finger to fire a short 10 fps burst.

 

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Lowland White-eye (Zosterops meyeni, a near Philippine endemic)

Habitat - Second growth, scrub and gardens. 

 

Shooting info - Bacnotan, La Union, Philippines, July 17, 2016, EOS 7D MII + EF 400 F/4 DO IS ii + EF 1.4 TC III,
560 mm, f/5.6, ISO 320, 1/500 sec, 455B/UBH45 support, manual exposure in available light, near full frame resized to 800 x 533.

High res 1500 x 1000 version