American Goldfinch

[Henry Domke]

Goldfinches are one of the most common & colorful birds at the Prairie Garden Trust (http://prairiegardentrust.org) during the summer. The males have a brilliant yellow color that is set off nicely against white and black wing markings. During the early winter the birds are still common but they loose their color and become drab.

In the past couple weeks some of the males have started to molt and get a bit of that flashy color back. That must mean that Spring is coming!

All suggestions and comments are welcome.

Canon 1DX
600 II
f/11
1/1,250 sec
ISO 2,000
manual exposure
Tripod
Processed with Lightroom 5 and Photoshop CC

Seed was scattered to attract the birds

[Geoffrey Montagu]

Interesting to see these birds in winter plumage Henry. Unique Chickadee like pose with very nice head turn. Like the subtle environment, BG, and framing. A minor nit would be to remove or darken curved twig near end of tail.

Geoffrey

[Bryan Munn]

I think it's a beautiful shot. The classic goldfinch pose...like one would see in a painting.

My backyard is full of goldfinches and I have been having a nightmare trying to photograph them. The are so small it is almost like macro photography. I use about 2" of extension, and my bird lens does not auto-focus, and DOF is about 1/2". Couple that with the fact that the little birds NEVER hold still.

Bearing all that in mind, you have a beautiful shot! My hat is off to you....

[Alan Murphy]

Love the pose and detail. A vertical would work well here too.

[dankearl]

It is a cool different pose for this guy, I might get rid of a few twigs (the one at the tail mentioned), but
I like habitat in photos and I like this one.

[Greg Oakley]

Awesome image of a great species - excellent IQ and I quite like the BG

[Holger Leyrer]

Nice pose and details. the vertical perch and the BG fits very good to the bird. Well done !