As my "shooting range" is in the shadow in the afternoon, I decided to try to simulate the sunlight with a gelled slave flash, geared with a small Lumiquest softbox and oriented toward a pine branch were the birds should theoretically land sometimes.
Second flash on a bracket with the camera for a bit of fill; the whole installation controlled by a STE2.
Worked somehow - most of the birds decided to land elsewhere all afternoon, as could be expected 
.
I also forgot the fill flash on manual zoom @ 24 mm 
, which wasted a good part of the light - a few keepers nevertheless, will do better next time!
All with 450D and Bigmos.
C&C welcome.
Thanks for looking.
1. Female Cardinal surveying the area from the pine boughts before hitting the sunflower buffet
2. Chickadee finishing to shell a sunflower seed (out of the area lighted by the gelled flash however)
3.Dark Eye Junco - Was too dark, did need a good deal of work in LR2, but the 450D @ 800 ISO and not enough light shows its limits! (Some of the noise removed with a pass of Neat Image).
4. The female Cardinal not bothered by the slave flash pulsing red and flashing (none of the birds were).
5. Hairy Woodpecker - Too far for the flashes, was not part of the "project", but given the distance (12.80 m. / 38 ft), and the low SS - 1/250 - I am rather pleased how it came out.
