I ended up seeing six of these smart little birds on Shetland, none more showy than the final one, in a garden on Whalsay where the owner had invited us to hop over his fence and plonk ourselves down. I didn't take many photos, preferring the close views, and anyway it was incredibly dark in the garden. The image directly below was taken whilst crouched down underneath the sycamores, and remarkably was at 1/200s - I had bumped the ISO to 1250, and removed the converter to get to f4 - this time I did use the monopod! To be honest I wasn't expecting to get anything, and indeed most of the series came out unusable. This, right in the middle of the set, defied the odds somehow! Thankfully we also had it in a near the more open area closer to the house.

Twite are amongst the commonest of small birds on Shetland, and tend to hang around crops fields with Sparrows. They're a lovely gingerly colour, and to hear a group bouncing over, jangling as they go, is something that to me just screams Shetland. As I was on a birding trip, I had kept camera gear to an absolute minimum - not even a monopod on this occasion, the idea being that if an opportunity presented itself I would just do the best I could and move on quickly. As it happens, I think I have underestimated the hand-holdability of the 500mm, it was incredibly easy to get a sharp shot just by crouching down and bracing, even in Shetland winds! These two are my favourites of all the ones I took, 700mm focal length, 1/1600s at f5.6. They're very similar, but one lends itself to a vertical crop, whilst the other the bird is slightly more horizontal and as such I've left it in its original format.

Shetland wasn't exactly a photographic extravaganza, with far more actual birding taking place, but where opportunity allowed I nabbed a few shots. Usually this was when I got bored with trying to find vagrants, I left the other two to it and had a quick pap. One such occasion was on the first morning at Sumburgh head, when it became apparent that the Red-flanked Bluetail wasn't around. Not even a year tick, so I went and stood by the cliff edge and started having a go at the Fulmars as they came past. The most successful method was to pick an individual bird a long way out and hope that it came in, tracking it all the way. Many times this didn't work as, early morning, they dipped into the shaded area, ie most of the skyline, but every now and again one stayed high enough for long enough. This is my favourite, and possibly amongst my favourite I've ever taken along with a few from Loop Head last year. More depth of field would have been good, no idea why I didn't dial in f8 or f10, as there was plenty of light. There's always something to get wrong in my experience!

This was with the 1D4, the 500mm, and the 1.4x converter - 1/6400s at f5.6. Even I can manage a sharp flight shot at that speed!