Hudsonian Godwit Posing

[Grace Scalzo]

Spent some time this June in Churchill, Canada. While photographing a female hudsonian godwit on this nice tundra pond, this stunning male flew in and provided some nice photo ops in beautiful light.

1/800, f8, iso800
Canon 1dx, 600 f4 + 2.0tc , lowered rrs tripod, in waders on belly
Removed some goose poo in post processing

[Joseph Przybyla]

Looks perfect to me Grace, thanks for sharing. Beautiful bird, nicely shown.

[Matthew Studebaker]

Definitely a "must photograph" bird when you are in the Churchill area. Great low angle with beautiful background and sub-arctic light.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Grace, this is pure class. Great angled pose, and you have brought out the detail and colours so well. That BG is simply stunning.

I really hope you hang this very big on a wall. I like this lots and lots.

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Love the low shooting angle and the sweet ligth!
Very nice godwit with a nice pose and the f/stop helped here to get the whole bird in focus! great job!

[Shawn Zierman]

This would be a holy grail species for me to photograph up there...lucky you! And in such exquisite light! My knee jerk reaction to the image before reading where it was taken was going to be,...wish the lawn was not cut....but I guess it's just tundra lawn, so it's all good :) Super image. I like the pose, particularly with the spacing between the legs and the head angle.

[WillieHall]

appreciate how you worked hard for the low angle and you really took advantage of the great light!

[Daniel Cadieux]

A fine looking specimen in fine form! You did him justice on a well executed and designed image.

[Tom van den Brandt]

What a beautiful Godwit:S3: good angle and pose.

Tom

[gail bisson]

What great light and I am glad to see you posting some images from Churchill.
I never saw tundra grass that was so nice and short. Is it like this everywhere in Churchill?
Great POV and as always excellent IQ.
Gail

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Grace what a great shot of this gorgeous Godwit. All around great work in field and at home :w3.

I might if this was mine tone down the HL for a bit more detail . WDYT?

TFS Andreas

[Jim Crosswell]

Great image Grace! I like the low angle, light, pose, details, sharpness, composition and complimentary BG.

[Grace Scalzo]

Thanks to everyone for your kind words, and Andreas for the suggestion on the whites. THeir faces don't look as dark as in your repost, but I do think I have more detail hiding in mine that I can bring out. Appreciate you taking your time on this.
Gail, there is a small creek that flows along in Churchill. It is very boggy (and Buggy) along it. The grass (or whatever it was) was just coming up and it was very short. Maybe it grows more as the summer progresses, I'm not sure. I have some yellowlegs in it too, will post in the future so that you can see how it looks. Believe me, no lawn mower has ever been near this spot. :)