Obstructed Blue Jay Picture

This could be a really good Blue Jay picture except for 1 small branch in the way. I get enough partly obstructed pictures of birds that I sometimes wonder if the bird believes that things like this branch provides important protection from me [1].

Of course, it's just as likely that birds spend their time in natural settings that generally don't provide clear line-of-sight views. These obstructed views might be due to the idea that a bird has to exist somewhere, and there are simply more obstructed places of it to be than there are unobstructed places [2].

On the bright side, if you ignore the branch, the lighting and background show off this Blue Jay's coloring pretty nicely.

May 10, 2023 at Delaware Raritan Canal
Photo 282314536, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

[1] The actual protection it gets comes from 1) I don't mean it any harm, and 2) the distance between us.

[2] This theory works better in woods than it does in a parking lot or a large, flat lawn.

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