The Carolina chickadee, Poecile carolinensis, is a bird whom I have most often encountered in winter, and the circumstances of the creation of this photograph hardly made this statement any less valid than it was before this encounter. When arriving at the super-secret birding location at which this chickadee was seen, I noticed that a nearby bush was occupied by many tiny birds, which excited me, for that was an opportunity for the capturing of a photograph of reasonable quality. I in an intentionally sluggish manner increased my proximity to the bush, which to my happiness only trivially concerned my birds; they began to calls of which the purpose was notifying other birds of the presence of a potential threat, but this was a misjudgment. After identifying some of the birds, the presence of a bird feeder became obvious to me, so I no longer wished to rush my attempts at the photographing of them, so I extended the legs of the tripod which was attached to the camera which was being employed by me and engaged in the photographing of some of the tiny birds when they posed attractively. One of the present chickadees repeatedly navigated to the feeder, and I noticed that he was following a similar path with every venture. I knew that he was unlikely to deviate from this path, so I prepared to photograph him when he would be standing atop an exposed twig, for that was relatively unlikely to yield an unappealing photograph. This chickadee then confirmed my prediction by standing several centimetres away from the position of which his occupancy had been expected. He failed to elude my camera’s focusing system, although he appears to have noticed the noise which was created by the lens which I was using, for he, as this photograph proves, gazed at me for a short period of time. I eventually accidentally frightened him sufficiently to encourage him to abscond, although I cannot imagine that he refused to reapproach the feeder; the Paridae are known to be rather intelligent.

As always, constructive criticism pertaining to this photograph, my writing, or any of my other photographs would be joyfully received by me, because I rather strongly wish to improve the quality of my photography. The sugar-coating of criticism directed at my creations, or even me as a person, is unnecessary, and it often simply causes the man who criticised my work to appear to have been uncertain about the legitimacy of the criticism which he gave to me. Although I attempt to extract everything which is beneficial for me from every situation in which I am involved, the lack of confidence which is displayed by those who vigorously attempt to remove any offensiveness from their criticisms leads to my suspicion of the lack of advice which would affect my creations positively. Please verbosely explain to me any flaws which are present in this photograph and were directly caused by me, e.g., clipping highlights or shadows, if they are noticed.