Varied Thrush

This was a tough one! Just over a week ago a report came in from a friend that has a house by the river, a male Varied Thrush was at her ground feeder.
This species only shows up around this time of year, and there are usually only one or two in the city.
The weather here has since dropped to minus conditions and on the day of this shot, it was a balmy minus 18 degrees celsius.

I sat huddled underneath their porch with several layers of clothes on, and rested my camera lens against a wooden rail. One of these days I will bring my tripod with me !

The light was appalling ( as usual ) and unfortunately, even worse in my friend's yard.
I found a gnarled old branch for a perch and set it just above where the bird kept coming down to feed. I say kept coming down..it only appeared twice in 3 hours :-(

Eventually, I was rewarded and it landed right where I wanted it to before hopping onto the ground where it sat amongst a pile of seed.

Canon 40d
Exposure time: 1/250
Shutter speed: 1/256.00
F-stop: 5.6
ISO speed: 800
Focal length: 400.0000
Fill Flash: Fired @ -2
Metering mode: Partial