Hi, this is not as spectacular as most (or I should say
all) of the images here. This hawk was in the tree and gave out a shriek when I was in the house. I took the camera and started looking for it. He was silent for about 10 minutes and then I saw a rustling in the leaves. It took me another ten minutes to find a possible shot as he kept moving around the branch. Eventually when I tried to shoot, AF was no good. Too many branches in the line of sight!

. So I tried MF. That did not work too well. Eventually he climbed a bit higher on the branch and I could get a decentish shot. Again AF did not work too well so I had to do a number of attempts before I got 2 shots off. This is the better shot. There was no other angle that I could have taken it at.
So question to the Gurus:
When the bird is in the bush (so to speak) and there are some branches/twigs in the line of sight, is there any other technique that I should be employing?
The shot was done on manual mode with auto ISO. 1/400, f8, ISO 2500 spot metering.
http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/9858/rpt6889.jpg