Crosseyed Potoo

[shane shacaluga]

Whilst night trekking in the Peruvian jungle last month, I was scoping out insects with a headlamp. In the distance on a branch at the side of the trail we noticed what appeared to be a flashing light. At first we thought it was a small LED light the natives used to guide themselves through the path but on closer inspection we realised it was actually a whacky looking bird

First we believed it to be some sort of Owl, then a nightjar of some description, but following morning one of the tribal people confirmed it was a lesser or common Potoo

I had my macro gear with me so removed the extension tube from my 50mm and proceeded to get as close as possible to take a good shot.

D800e
50mm f1.8
f6.3
1/30
ISO 2000
Onboard flash fired

Large crop and standard PP. Darkened pupils by removing luminosity from a colour saturation layer. Removed some red painted letters from the perch

Thanks for commenting

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

The eyes of these birds are amazing! the typical alert pose and you manage to get a good shot despite the difficulties. It is not easy to get good results when one shoots birds at night but I would say you came out with a good one.

[Bill Dix]

Congratulations. These are incredibly tough birds to find, even more so to photograph. I'm not really crazy about his choice of perch, but the Potoo looks great, especially those eyes.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Shane, a bird I havent seen before, and how are those eyes - quite haunting. Great flashwork, and the Potoo really stands out from the night BG. Moving to your left, would you not have achieved a cleaner BG?

[gail bisson]

Love the story behind this sjot!
Looks great for a flash/night shot.
I do wish for a nicer perch but understand that Mother Nature is the boss and decides where these guys perch!:S3:
Gail

[shane shacaluga]

Thanks for your comments guys.

Stuart the main concern for me at the time was to get a good sharp shot before the potoo disappeared. I had never used the 50mm lens for this type of shot so was playing it by ear and checking the results on the camera screen every couple of shots. I underexposed a few times and reduced the shutter speed as much as i dared to capture this. The potoo flew off very soon after i got this image into the pitch black jungle. There was thick vegetation everywhere so not sure if moving would have lit up some other foliage in the BG.