Hungarian Hoopoes

[Rich Steel]

Hi

I took a trip over Hungary for a week at the start of June. An amazing country for bird photography and it was a very productive week including plenty of new species. When we arrived the young Hoopoes had just fledged and had left the nesting site with the adults. Our hosts thought we had probably missed any photo opportunities with these birds. Anyway I decided to spend a few hours in the small elevated hide just opposite the nesting site in an old derelict building and fortunately the birds returned frequently.

Taken with a 1Dmk4 with a 500mm lens at ISO 400 F5.6 at 1/400s and -0.7EV.

Cheers

Rich

[jacinto policarpo]

Great shot Rich!! Congrats!

Cheers!

[Oscar Dewhurst]

Wonderful shot Rich, love the interaction between the two birds

Oscar

[Alan Murphy]

Great image a wonderful BG. Might remove the noise on the BG.

[Satish Ranadive]

Marvelous image of interaction between mom and chick.Very nice lights,perch and BG.
Love the pose of chick,colors and details on both birds.

Regards,
Satish.

[stuart wanuck]

Just a lovely image

[dankearl]

Great interaction, just one more round of NR and it would be about perfect.
The sharpness , perch and BG are really nice.

[Ofer Levy]

Terrific image! Don't see much noise at the BG at all.

[David Salem]

Very nice shot. Great interaction and clean surrounding light. Well done... I dont think the BG is that noisy either.

David

[Grace Scalzo]

Really engaging action. Not in love with the broken end of the perch...could you possibly crop from the right to where it ends? Not sure if your ethics allow this, but looks to me like an easy job to extend it if you don't want to crop. Otherwise, a very pleasing image that I wish was mine.

[Ken Watkins]

Rich,

For me this would be as good as it gets for these remarkable birds, truly marvelous:cheers:

I can also see no "interfering" noise

[arash_hazeghi]

excellent pose interaction and good details

[Robert Holguin]

Excellent shot. I really like the interaction, great poses, excellent detail, and very well composed.
well done.

[Melvin Grey]

As has already been said - Great interaction. Very nicely composed image and details. Your persistence paid off.

[Sachin Saraf]

Great image...Lovely interaction and BG..Well done.

[Rich Steel]

Thanks for the comments. I wasn't crazy about the perch either. This was a very short perch wedged into the wall next to the nest hole in a derelict farm building. Unfortunately the perch was about 10 ft off the ground opposite a small raised hide, so there was no opportunity to change it to something more aesthetically pleasing. One benefit however was that the white wall of the building acted as a big reflector that provided some nice even lighting.

Cheers

Rich

[Melissa Groo]

Fantastic behavioral image, Rich. Great sharpness, detail, IQ. Great job on depth of field.