Cuckoo in flight

[Ivan Ellison]

Been a bogey bird of mine for a long time, but finally got one that would allow close observation. Taken today in N Yorkshire.
Cropped to centre the bird with a little canvas added to top and left with clone tool
Lightened a little and sharpened. Noise reduction in ACR and a little more sharpening when resized

Canon 1D mkIV
Canon 500 f4 is + 1.4 conv.
1/2000 , F7.1, ISO 800

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Ivan
This is a great-looking specie. I don't recal seeing it before so thanks for sharing.
Love the clean BG, pose and eye contact in this image. The worm? in the beak is a bonus. The post work looks great but I would run NR on BG once more.

[John Robinson]

That's a cracker ! bad enough sitting still !! This species has certainly booster MP$ players etc!
Great stuff
JohnR

[David Salem]

What a nice flight frame. The head is nice and sharp, great eye contact and the grub in the beak is a big bonus. The yellow eye really pops well and the bit of wing blur adds to the feeling of movement.
The banding on the belly looks cool on this species and the green BG showcases the grey bird well. Very nice.

[arash_hazeghi]

very cool flight shot, the food item is a bonus, I wish for less wing blur. I like the BG too, it can use some NR as mentioned

TFS

[MiroslavMaric]

Congratulations Ivan! It's a miracle, cuckoo in flight and with insect :w3. Good composition and reasonable sharp. As mentioned BG can be improved easy in PP. TFS & good luck with cuckoo! Cheers! Miro

[christopher galeski]

nice capture,some nice detail,like the flight pose,grub in beak a bonus,agree another round of NR on BG.well done.

[Jonathan Ashton]

The eye is pin sharp and the grub is the icing on the cake. There will be a lot of envious people in UK when they see this, well done. Not an easy bird to get, I have one perched and would love to get one in flight.

[gail bisson]

I agree with the comments above re BG. I am with Arash on this one, and would have liked a bit less wing blur but the image is sharp where it counts and very unusual to see a flight shot of a cuckoo.
Love the worm! Congrats on this one

[Bradley James]

Nicely done on capturing this shot and I agree with the comments already made. Keep up the great work

[Gabriela Plesea]

Lovely capture Ivan, congratulations! Well exposed and sharp, nice detail, I really enjoyed viewing this image, thank you!

Kind regards,

[Steve Kaluski]

Certainly a cool image Ivan. Hearing them is not hard, it's getting a shot that is, so this is excellent work, with the cherry on top in terms of having the grub too. Personally I might have moved the whole crop up a tad, but no deal breaker.
Top marks for the inflight capture! :cheers:

TFS
Steve

[Sidharth Kodikal]

Amazing image Ivan. Don't recall seeing a cuckoo in flight image posted before. Excellent eye contact and the worm takes this over the top.

[Daniel Cadieux]

I'm sure this is a high difficulty image to achieve from what I read here...congrats! I like the pose, BG, prey item. I would have preferred the subject a bit lower in the frame, but that's it.

[Mark Itol]

Sharp and well-exposed, love the food in the beak and background. I like how the blurred wingtips convey as sense of speed. Personally I would prefer to have the bird a bit lower and to the right of the frame.

[adrian dancy]

A superb capture Ivan and without doubt as a flight shot one of the best in the UK. Unusual to see a cuckoo flying with a prey item , especially since it does not feed its young.
The wing blur in my view is within acceptable limits IMHO.
I see no reason to overdo the NR to the point that the blurring is obvious.
Over all ....well done!

[Ritesh Nangare]

Great Light on the bird, Awesome Flight Shot With Pray, All And All A Awesome shot.

[keith mitchell]

Ivan big congrats on getting this excellent shot.

Cheers Keith.

[Andrew Robinson]

Fantastic image Ivan. It has mostly already been said but a superb image of a difficult bird. The ones that have been around here for the last five years haven't turned up this year. Congratulations.

Andrew

[Karl Egressy]

Excellent flight shot of this rare to see posted bird.

[Fernando Cerra]

Great angle, rarely seen flight photos of a cuckoo