I’ve had mixed success shooting red-breasted sapsucker on the west coast. Despite visiting several locations where other photographers have easily obtained great photos, I was always hampered by either not finding them, or having uncooperative birds.

On one occasion did obtain several photos, and although the distance was much farther than I would prefer, I used slight more creative cropping to frame the bird in a pleasing way. Traditionally the general rule of thumb would have been to crop with the bird in the lower left part of the frame, but to my eye that left me with far too much of the tree trunk in the frame. To me this gives a great perspective on the typical rain forest habitat this bird lives in.