Stalking the stork

Storks (or rather white storks - ciconia ciconia) are characteristically Polish birds - 25% of the world's population is concentrated in Poland. I associate storks with the countryside - so imagine my delight when, returning home from work on Monday night, I saw one in the field between the W-wa Jeziorki station and the bus stop. After popping off a few shots from a distance, I then, slowly, carefully, approached the fellow from the main road to get a closer pic (remember the two rules of photography. 1) Get close to the subject. 2) Get closer still).

So here's the next photo... I did not want to approach too close in case the stork flew off. And I was not equipped with my lens of choice in such situations, the 80-400mm Nikkor zoom (optically very good but slow to autofocus, although here it would not have been an issue).

The light was a problem - strong contrast between low, evening sunshine streaming in from the west (right) - some judicial adjustment was required in Photoshop to get a decent result.

Interestingly, Marcin Daniecki who lives in the vicinity, managed to get a shot of what seems to be the same fellow three days earlier (left). Will this stork is becoming a Jeziorki regular? I hope so! This heron that I snapped earlier this month perched on the stump of a concrete post in the wetlands at the end of ul Trombity seems to have become a fixture, I've seen him several times in the same place. Sadly, the swans that visited in past years didn't come back this year.