Trust: John Crabb, 62, from Bishopswood, Somerset, has built up a special relationship with a wild robin that has set up home in his gardenTiny legs outstretched and wings spread in flight, a robin prepares to make an unlikely landing.
The inquisitive garden bird will happily perch on the waiting outstretched palm: because he knows it contains a tempting morsel to eat.
So comfortable has the plucky little creature become with the daily routine, that the man holding out his hand - photographer John Crabb - has been able to set up a simple system to capture the landing on camera.
Retired university physicist Mr Crabb, 62, took up photography earlier this year and soon began looking at ways of capturing the spectacular flight of the birds visiting his garden in Bishopswood, near Chard, in Somerset.
Landed: The inquisitive garden bird will happily perch on the waiting outstretched palm because he knows it contains a tempting morsel to eat 
Retired university physicist John Crabb, 62, took up photography earlier this year and soon began looking at ways of capturing the spectacular flight of the birds visiting his gardenHe and wife Louise had been regularly feeding their red-breasted visitor - the bird has a young family and a taste for suet pellets - for some time when Mr Crabb realised feeding time offered a perfect photographic opportunity .
He marked the feeding spot with a garden cane in the lawn, then set up a camera with a telephoto lens about 23ft away, pre-focusing the camera.
Then he ran a cable to the camera so he could trigger a remote release.
The rest relies on the communication built on familiarity between man and bird.
'When I feed him with my right hand I have the switch in my left
'We have an arrangement it seems,' said Mr Crabb. 'If I go and stand in the feeding place he comes and sits in a nearby tree, then when I raise my hand he flies down and I press the switch as he approaches.'
Mr Crabb is photographing his garden visitor almost every day at the moment, but he thinks that will soon end when the bird's fledgling offspring can fend for themselves.
source: dailymail
Posts
