After a unique viral photo, nature photographer tells us how the "surreal experience" of being blocked on social media was hilarious – and we think he has a point!

Photographer Carl Bovis was shocked to be told by former New York attorney Regina Alberty that she was blocking him on social media for the heinous crime of posting an unflattering photo of a bird.

She implied he had deliberately made the image look bad because he disliked the woodpigeon, saying: "Usually photographers try to take pictures that favor the subject. Do you even like the subject of your pics?" before telling him not to answer, as she would be blocking him.

I got in touch with Carl, who is based in Somerset in the UK – not so far from where Digital Camera World started life – and asked him how it felt to be on the receiving end of this.

He said "I'm usually quite sensitive to criticism but I found that hilarious!" which, if I'm honest, I was expecting – as he'd shared the image on socials "knowing my followers would be similarly amused" he said, "but I didn't quite expect the reaction it got."

As he also notes, "I definitely gained more than I lost. Regina didn't even follow me, but was so offended by my harmless woodpigeon in the rain that she had to block me, and made sure I knew why!"

Others are asking for more 'offensive pigeons' – could this be a new genre in photography? – and Carl has even sold prints on the back of this exchange (see Carl Bovis print sales).

There have also been a lot of funny replies defending Carl on social platforms. He picked out: "I didn't even get *that* testy after I saw my own passport photo." while I enjoyed: "Yeah, the pigeon can't use that on Tinder! What a worthless photoshoot."

Oddly, the pigeon incident might only be "one of" the strangest discussions he has had about his photography.

"One woman once insisted that all my birds in flight photos were dead, and 'posed' in mid-air by string.... that was strange, but I don't think she blocked me!"

I asked Carl about his history in photography (beyond unusual exchanges). He told me "I've always loved birds, and I started taking photos of them back in 2006 when I bought my first DSLR camera, a Nikon D50, so I could have a record of what I'd seen."

He started sharing them on the now-defunct Fotothing, and was surprised by the positive response: "I got very popular there, but the site started to go downhill when other bigger rivals started appearing, such as Flickr and Facebook."

He still uses social: "I started posting on both, then eventually joined Twitter in 2015. That's now where I share most of my work because that's where most of my followers are."

His camera is now a Nikon Z9, and "I like to walk about hand-holding it with Nikon Z 180-600mm lens to get my photos."

He let me into one more secret about the 'singing woodpigeon' as the title suggests: "When I'm at home I take photos of the birds in my garden from my bathroom window as it offers the best view. That's where I took the 'singing woodpigeon in the rain' photo. The pigeon was actually having a bit of a preen in the rain, This is a good time to get unusual angles and poses as the birds shake their feathers and stretch to reach different areas of their plumage. This Woodpigeon wasn't actually singing (or cooing), it had just shaken itself, and I used a very fast shutter speed to freeze this split second in time."

Check our guides to the best camera for wildlife photography and best lenses for bird photography.