It's the little things

I finally visited a birdwatching spot I was wanting to visit for a long time. It's less than an hour drive from where I live, and on the way to said spot the amount of wildlife we can see is just impressive - actually, I saw a ton more species on the way there than i the exact spot!

There were a ton of larger birds, and I snapped a couple hundred photos; I was hoping to get some awesome photos of the larger creatures, but the ones that stole the show, photography wise... where the little ones! Such that they will deserve the spot in this weeks' SMAP!

^{Common chiffchaff - Phylloscopus collybita}

These little birds are a common sighting; supposedly they only appear in Portugal in wintertime, but I can see them all year long, so I'm guessing there are a few individuals that stay for the long term; at least in the parks near my house.

They are hard to see standing still normally, always jumping from branch to branch; but here, they tended to stay perched longer - lucky me!

Truth be told, this is not where I usually see them. I was in an observatory facing a large lagoon, and this wwasn't the species I was expecting to see here. And yet, there were lots of these little birds, flying just in front of the observatory! No binoculars needed!

Chiffchaffs don't have that many distinctive features; the greenish plumage, the tiny band above the eye and the behaviour is how I usually recognize them.

There is no difference between sexes, either. Good thing here, is that they were so many, and so close, that I could just enjoy the show and capture them in every possible angle: front, back, side, upwards, backwards... even with the water reflex: any birdwatcher's dream!

I've done zero processing on these photos: they're just as they came out of the camera. It was a thrill to see them in a larger screen, because more often than not (especially with smaller, restless birds) the photos look great on the small camera screen and blurred on the computer; this time, the large part of them were just great. The ones I deleted were just due to very similar photos or with twigs in the way.

Cute little things, aren't they? :)

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