So I am now firmly in the camp of understanding if I want a bird in flight pic, my Nikon will not do …. it simply doesn’t have the zoom, however I do like the (after filter) painting feel to this picture – so I’m Ok with it.   And after the storm and the snow melted I did get a little ground bird visiting my yard so thought I’d show him off too.   Not sure if I will get back to the lake tomorrow – I got very distracted with a new piece of software that I’m playing with on animating my cat for work  (I do get distracted with bright, shiny, new toys :-).  If I don’t get to the lake, I may give Chewie some dedicated exposure time because he is the most photogenic (not that I’m biased) of all my 3 kitties.