The image at bottom left is one of my first 'good' bird photographs.   I took the picture using an old Nikon F camera and a 300 mm Nikkor lens (not the greatest optic ever made...).   The bird had temporarily stunned itself on a window at a house just up the street from mine (on the Monterey Peninsula, California).   I let it sit on a pine branch with a piece of black velvet in the background.   I was impressed with this little bird's fearlessness, and also by its extremely strong feet and claws.  It is the browner Pacific race.
      The other pictures are of 'mountain' pigmy owls, in Zion Canyon, Utah and the Santa Rita Mountains of southeastern Arizona. The former was out in the middle of a late Autumn day, which is typical for these bold little day-active owls.   It paid no attention to a bunch of toursts ogling the canyon (oblivious to the owl's presence) or me, or the flock of small birds mobbing it.   The Arizona owls were nesting in a sycamore tree above a busy hiking trail in Madera Canyon, and were similarly unfazed by passing people.

• Nikon F, Nikon 300 mm f4.5, Kodachrome 25, electronic flash (1969)
• Canon 1D Mk. II or 7D2, 500 mm IS lens + 2X converter or 800 mm IS lens with 1.4X converter, fill-in flash (2006, 2020)