Juvenile Black-bellied Plover.

[Daniel Cadieux]

There was only one shorebird on the beach early in the morning one day last week, and it was a cooperative one. It was a bit wary at first, but with a low and slow approach it became habituated to me and eventually allowed for full-frame head-and-shoulder portraits. It also comfortably preened, slept, and fed at point-blank range (many times too close to focus)...gotta love those moments! The BG is water, with a bit of beach showing.

Canon 7D + 100-400L @285mm, manual exposure, evaluative metering, 1/1000s., f/7.1, ISO (settings histogram checked), natural light, handheld, full-frame. Adjusted levels to taste, added saturation, and minor bill clean-up (had a piece of dry mud hanging from a thread)

[Satish Ranadive]

Daniel Sir,
Marvelous image.Excellent composition.Little bit of beach behind the perch and FG has given very nice 3D effect to the image.Love the pose,beautiful lights and great details.
Here migratory shorebirds are still not arrived.They will start arriving at the end of October. Wish I will be able to follow your footsteps in photographing them soon.

Regards,
Satish.

[Grace Scalzo]

Yes, the bird is lovely, but there are many good bb plover images out there. What turns this one into art is the thougthful composition and judicious use of habitat elements. Beautiful work, Daniel.

[Bill Dix]

Lovely position of the bird in the frame. Grace nailed it - the soft habitat elements make this one special.

[dankearl]

This is very nice! Pin sharp and the habitat is very attractive.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Lovely pose super detail and like everyone else I really like the setting - a super shot.

[Kerry Perkins]

Wonderful image Daniel, technically excellent and artistically presented. Very nice.

[gail bisson]

This is lovely Daniel.
I love the blue of the sky and the soft greens. I like the rock and the good look at the feet as well.
Excellent comp that really shows off the habitat well,
Gail

[Arthur Morris]

Beautiful as noted above. Too bad that you had to zoom out so much. ISO??? I was looking for a juvie of this species this morning at DeSoto to no avail. But lots of other great stuff.

[Randy Stout]

Daniel:

Nice bird, but lovely composition, like the little mound, placement in the frame, colors.

Cheers

Randy

[Shawn Zierman]

Sweet shot of this species. Great light and the composition works nicely. The slight head turn towards the viewer
is subtle and effective. The low angle really helped to diminish what appears to be a heavily soiled rock surface :)

[Daniel Cadieux]

Thank you all!

Artie, thanks for paying good attention to my techs...ISO 400 :S3:

[Arthur Morris]

Thank you all! Artie, thanks for paying good attention to my techs...ISO 400 :S3:

You are welcome. I am usually oblivious to that stuff but I was looking for images for this post (http://www.birdsasart-blog.com/2012/09/16/answers-in-48-hours/) and for Tuesday night's follow-up post.