Got some gen from Nick, one of the regular crew, who said that he had been able to get within ten feet of a Whinchat in the scrub near the Golden Fleece Pub. Naturally when I turned up it flew off before I'd got within fifty yards, but with patience I got it down to about thirty feet or so. All these images are taken with the 1D Mk IV camera and the 800mm f5.6 lens + the 1.4x converter - some pretty crazy focal length with just a monopod for support, but did have to delete quite a few. Only the centre focus point is active at f8, which is a problem with composition - I couldn't focus and recompose as the wind was blowing the perch around all over the place. I used AI Servo and hoped the focus point landed on the head and that I got a good pose! All in all I took about 250 frames, of which I kept 30 and whittled it down to 5 for this post. It reaffirms my belief that focal length is key for small passerines, which means I no longer have any idea what to take to Shetland!!