The light was not great but the birds were putting on quite a show so I just maxed out everything for shutter speed and kept shooting until I got lucky. Even at that, this shot is greatly cropped.
As for the "leading edge flaps," I showed a print of this to a bird guy at a local Audubon place and he said that was very common especially on small birds. It is just hard to see as it happens so fast.
A few more visitors at the feeder today. I don't have a proper adapter yet, so I was just playing with the Digital Rebel held up to a telescope with a tripod. The images are a bit fuzzy since I was shooting from indoors through double-pane glass, but better than I would have thought.
Very nice shot - looks like a House Sparrow. I wish they came around to my feeder, but no such luck. The sparrows I do get are mainly White-Throated, with the occasional Song Sparrow.
We had a beautiful boat-tail Grackle show up today, which was a good break from the hordes of European Starlings that have wailing away on my feeder:
