The eleventh day of the month of February of the year 2019 was rather dreary, and I, partially as a result of this, slumbered for a lengthier period of time than I had anticipated, regardless of my having attempted to utilise a newly-discovered method of setting my alarms. At approximately 1200, my mobile phone received a notification and emitted a jarring sound which, in addition to indicating the receiving of the notification, awakened me from my slumber. I responded to having been awakened by decrypting my mobile phone and viewing its clock, and I quickly learned that I had overslept by six (6) hours, a realisation which resulted in the ejecting of me from the bed on which I was sleeping. After the occurrence of this and some various other mundane tasks, I decided to visit my great-grandmother, and, upon my arrival, I noticed that a large congregation of songbirds was present at the house of one of her neighbours; because I wished to photograph an assortment of these birds, I began the devising of a method of attracting them to the house of my great-grandmother, because I did not wish to inadvertently photograph the interior of the house of the neighbour. During my venture to the back door of her house, I observed that, much to my pleasure, the suet which was previously present in her suet feeder had been the victim of the birds’ cumulative gorging, but although those who partook in the feast likely enjoyed the eating of the suet, they are to my knowledge incapable of eating suet which no longer exists; if I wish to please them with another series of meals, then I must refill the feeder. I enquired about whether or not my grandmother possessed any suet for the songbirds, and she did not disappoint me, for she informed me of the presence of an amount of suet in the utility room of her house. During the removal of these feasts from their wrappers, I watched an ant as he crawled out of a teacup which was placed onto an island table, a sight which I found to be slightly repulsive, but it was ultimately harmless, as I shortly afterward navigated to her bird feeder and placed into each of its compartments a block of suet, which the birds quickly understood; approximately one (1) minute after my returning to the living room of her house, I became distracted by a reasonable amount of outdoor activity, which, upon closer examination, was revealed to be the same congregation of birds which had eaten at the neighbour’s house, as well as a male downy woodpecker!

After noticing the short-distance migration of these birds, I fetched my camera and corresponding equipment and proceeded to a location from which I could photograph birds who decided to approach the feeder. Although my presence initially sufficiently frightened the numerous birds to warrant their fleeing to the tree which was nearest to the feeder, my birds quickly returned to the feeder, although some of the birds appeared as though they had chosen to forage on the ground, which initially confused me to a considerable extent; logically, they should have been driven to imbibe in my offering, but they instead pecked at the ground and overturned leaves. However, further observation revealed the source of their behaviour: I had discarded an old piece of suet by dropping it onto the ground, and, because dark-eyed juncos, the birds who generally strayed from the beaten path and pursued the feed which had been placed onto the ground, are naturally foragers, they had declared the discarded suet to be more enticing than that which had notably recently been placed into the feeder, presumably because they find the act of walking on the ground to be more appealing than the performance of clinging by their feet to cold metal.

Because the shakiness of my hands increases as the temperature decreases, I assumed that I would be incapable of creating an acceptably-sharp photograph unless I utilised my tripod, thereby greatly increasing the potential stability of my setup. In addition to this, when the legs of my tripod are not extended, my camera can be located relatively near to the ground, and I can therefore create a photograph which is more visually appealing than would be a photograph created while I pointed the camera at a narrow downward angle, but I am incapable of standing and using my tripod if its legs are planted on the ground while remaining non-extended; I was therefore required to sit on the icy ground, dirtying my trousers and feeling rather cold in the process, for the purpose of photographing my birds. After I decreased the amount of my visible movement, the dark-eyed juncos returned to the discarded block of suet for the purpose of eating minuscule chunks of the suet block, encouraging the photographing of them; birds often become relatively calm when eating, and the act of scaring them by means of activating the shutter mechanism of my camera is therefore less likely than it would otherwise be. Several photographs in which the block of suet or container were created, although these objects were displeasingly unsightly, discouraging the development of them, so I inched closer to the block of suet, which again resulted in the birds’ temporary evacuation. Upon their return, I noted that the juncos arrived on the ground at a short but non-trivial distance from the block of suet, which I recognised as being the periods of time during which photographs which contain a junco or juncos will not necessarily also contain the block of suet or its container. I during the creation of several photographs failed to correctly track my subject, but I eventually successfully tracked my subject and captured a photograph, and I prove this statement by drawing to the attention of my reader the photograph about which this description was written, known as “2019021151853”.

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.