I encountered the Yellow-billed Cuckoo at Duncan Cove, Halifax Regional Municipality, on October 9, 2014. This elegant bird allowed several photos before it moved on.

I am happy with my photos with just two gripes. I haven't been carrying my tripod along this route due to scarcity of birds so I had to photograph my cuckoo with a hand held 600mm lens with some nasty, as always, backlighting. I was also huffing and puffing after climbing a hill.

From a never relevant techno-babble point of view at the shooting distance I had with f-stops between f6.3 and f11 the depth of field of my images are between 45mm to 70mm. This is why its so important to focus on the eye before framing the shot because unless the bird is totally flat on to the camera a portion of the bird will always be out of focus, especially if your target bird like this cuckoo is five metres distant.

Nevertheless despite my gripes it was a good find.

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