I have been commonly described as being a rationally cheap man, but others have deemed me to be a man who is willing to perform nearly anything if it results in the saving of several cents, and, in the case of my having purchased another lens in an attempt to increase the quality of my photographs, I certainly suited my former description, for I managed to acquire a lens at approximately thirty-three per-cent (33%) of its manufacturer-suggested retail price (MSRP). The speed with which the lens which I ordered was delivered astonished me; I have never received a domestic parcel within a time span of merely two (2) days, nonetheless a package which was shipped from the country of Japan, and I was therefore initially somewhat sceptical of the legitimacy of my order, but this scepticism was revealed to be misplaced, for I received the item which I had ordered, and, although the item which I received was not equipped with an image-stabilising mechanism, I was quite pleased with my order.

In the afternoon of eighteenth day of the month of February of the year of 2019, I somewhat sluggishly travelled to the residence of my grandmother, and, during my ambulation, I encountered several European starlings and other dirty immigrants, whose presences had been expected, but I for the first time witnessed the flight and perching of Colaptes auratus, a woodpecker who is more commonly known as the northern flicker, but the distance between the woodpecker and me was too great to enable the creation of a photograph of an acceptable quality -- in fact, I was uncertain of his species until I viewed the lousy photograph which I had captured, at which point his species was made obvious by the scarlet patch on the rear of his neck. After peering downward at the screen of my digital SLR camera while standing in the middle of the road, I noticed that he had escaped; I therefore continued to ambulate to the residence of my grandmother until I became aware of a rock pigeon who was perched on a power line, whom I briefly pursued, but this pursuit was prematurely ended by his reluctance to be approached, because he flew into one of the nearby wooded areas. I encountered no other birds until I arrived at the house of my grandmother, but when I arrived, the collective chirps of a colony of approximately twenty (20) individuals of Junco hyemalis distracted me from my consideration of the presence of the rock pigeon, but I shortly became slightly less intrigued by the congregation than I was by the substance which they were consuming, which was upon closer inspection revealed to be not a single substance, but various types of extremely sugar-rich junk food. Although I was not horrified by this offering, I did understand that the junk food is liable to decrease the overall health of the juncos if sufficiently large quantities of the junk food are ingested, which motivated me to retrieve and place onto the ground a piece of fat which was impregnated with black oil sunflower seeds, which is much better for the juncos; fats are much denser storages of energy than are sugars, and juncos naturally eat seeds. My congregation very quickly observed my offering to them, and this activity prompted my venturing outdoors in an attempt to photograph the juncos, who did not appear to be significantly bothered by being visible in the viewfinder of my camera; I was initially too close to be capable of creating a photograph which could be cropped without hiding a section of the tail of the subject, thus I slowly crawled backwards and inadvertently frightened a couple of the birds whom I planned to photograph, although they quickly returned.

The individual who is visible in “20190218145134” did not behave in a manner which significantly deviated from that of the other members of the group; I selected him because I was within a reasonable distance of him, in addition to his rather handsome appearance. Several of the dark-eyed juncos had gathered around the cake of suet to imbibe in the offering, but this individual appeared to be patiently waiting for an empty spot in the circle which the others had formed, because he was located near the suet cake, but he pecked the ground to forage for food. I initially forgot to observe his behaviour through my newly-acquired lens; I watched him through my eyes alone, which was a mistake which I speedily corrected; I resituated myself to be capable of watching him through the viewfinder of my camera, and he responded by freezing for a moment, an action which I interpret as indicating some degree of awareness of my intentions, because many songbirds, including dark-eyed juncos, erect the feathers on their crowns when they feel agitated, but this individual did not raise his crown feathers or otherwise appear to be frightened. Regardless of my understanding of the individual’s having returned to his foraging after I manually focused the lens with unexpected proficiency, I have failed to remember whether or not the snowbird finally ate some pieces of the suet cake.

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.