I'm a decent bird photographer, but I'm not a great bird photographer. For those of us with average abilities, a big part of looking like a halfway decent photographer is just knowing what not to show anyone else - don't annoy them with bird-dots (unless that tiny little object is actually quite rare and this is your only documentation and you can actually see some identifying marks on that little sesame seed of a bird...), don't post a lot of out of focus, underexposed/overexposed shots where the bird is half-obscured.
Except, sometimes those photos really work...
Pileated Woodpecker... they always feel like they're part of a dreamscape when I see them. Even this blurry, they're so iconic that there's never any doubt. (BTW, this is a color photo. srsly.)
I'm always trying to get photos of birds in good lighting that are nice and sharp and show the details well, especially if I'm planning to use them for Dawn Chorus. I spend a lot of time "weeding" after a day of taking pix, and often go back in and get rid of older, not so good stuff when I have newer, better images of a species.
But some photos show the birds more the way we really see them, or maybe the just look pretty cool for some other reason, even if it's not a "good" bird photo. Here are a few that I've always liked.
Osprey through the trees - the blue and green of sky and foliage also seem to echo a feeling of water... so right for an osprey
Steller's Jay, climbing a madrone... the intensity of the background color, the very sharp texture of the bark contrasted with the blurry abstraction of the background, and the cipher of a bird... I just love this one.
The redtail's sharp, but not much detail is visible; I do like the way the shadow falls. It has that feeling of watching them slip silently past, almost unseen... it's always amazing to me how many people don't notice the hawks in their midst.
Almost a bird dot, but not quite. This California Quail blends in so well with the coastal scrub that you almost don't see him (no doubt he hopes that redtails like the one above have that response.) Not much of a bird photo, but a lovely landscape photo that just happens to have a quail teed up nicely...
I tried to photograph a Black Oystercatcher through a friend's scope, but the eyepiece was not real compatible with my camera. It was still a cool photo, but then I tried pushing it to see if I could get any more detail or color, and...
Still one of my favorites, from just a few months after I got my first digital.
It's funny how it works with these photos. With most blurry images, if you reduce them down a bit, they look a bit sharper, so they look better. With the blurry ones here, they actually look even more interesting (to me anyway) when they're viewed at a larger size. You can see the full size versions of these here.