The perils of autofocus

"Photo cameras create nasty habits, It is better to start with binoculars", this precept by Tatiana, my pajarera mentor, was never as true as with this failed photo.

First, I detected a bird that was suitable to be captured -by the camera, that is- so I raised the lens, framed the animal and pressed the shutter release button. What I was not aware then was that the artifact was set in autofocus, so because the tree branches were closer to us, the camera shifted the focus and I got a really neat image of the tree branches with a very blured shadow of a bird in the background. The animal flew immediately and to this day I can't for the life of me name what species it belonged to.

The moral of the story? Nowadays I own two sets of binoculars.