The best time of day to survey breeding birds is of course soon after sunrise so I have spent a lot of early mornings in the forest over the years from 1997 when the wet heath project began. Getting up and out early forces you into some great experiences with the weather, sometimes good and sometimes less so but on this early May morning the weather was cool but clear and as the sun rose at 05:19 this male Tree Pipit adopted this dead tree as its song perch. The convoluted branches set against the orange of the eastern sky made a magical backdrop for this iconic little migrant and having the 100-400 zoom lens I was able to zoom out and frame it in a vertical shot but later I cropped it further into this format that seemed to suit the scene better.

Canon 20D with the original Canon 100-400 lens at 100mm

1/800th second at f5.6 and ISO 200