Day 104 - Brush Strokes and Stunning Colour

I honestly don't know what to say about this photograph. The product of patience and plain luck (and the 18-times zoom on the Olympus), this portrait of a strutting grackle simply took my breath away. I heard him before I saw him. Then I had to sneak up on him, zoom right in and click away. He moved in and out of the shadow of a large trailer (you see one of the trailer's metal supports in the photo) so it took some time to get a good shot.

This is taken at full zoom. I still had to crop it in iPhoto, which results in the very slight lack of focus. Rather than a fault, however, I find the slight blur to the image of the bird actually adds to the picture: because it's not perfectly focused, I see the grackle's feathers in brush strokes of colour, brush strokes that make him look almost painted, with vivid, magnificent colour that only a grackle in sunlight can offer.