Over the last 3 years, I probably have seen this bird about 3-4 times (ok, seen is quite a strong word). But it has always scooted away quicker than one can say ‘Long-billed Thrush’. Got lucky this time as I was prepared for the very-low pre-dawn light (having bumped up the ISO to 6400).

We spotted the bird by the side of the road and as our vehicle stopped he hopped from the road to a branch on the slope of the hill. Luckily that happened to be on the side I was sitting on. More importantly, we had managed to stop at just about the right spot for me (maybe 6 inches behind would have been perfect as the tail may have been completely visible). I had a second or two to shoot off a few pics from the window of the car before it disappeared down the side of the hill.

With such low light, despite bumping up the ISO to 6400, the shutter-speed I was getting was super-low (1/30 is hardly an adequate speed to get a sharp image) but I was lucky that I had a bean-bag support on the window and the bird was quite still momentarily – resulting in a decent image all things considered. I just love the feel of the forest in the background – greatly enhances the image in my view.