Kentucky Warbler

[Jack Backs]

August is a pretty lousy month for warblers in my area. It seems that adult warblers that breed in my area migrate south around
the 1st of August but species that breed farther north don't come through until nearly September. The only thing left is ratty looking
juveniles. This image was from yesterday morning. I'm supposedly in the northern part of their breeding range but I've never seen
one during the breeding season. I've only seen them during spring and fall migratory periods. I have an area of brush in front of a
tree line that attracts quite a few migratory warblers that I frequent this time of year. I spotted this bird early in the morning and it
took me nearly two hours of stalking to get an image out of the brush black hole that is behind the bird. I tried audio but it just doesn't
work very well this time of year. I had to remove one fairly significant OOF branch.

Nikon D500, 500mmF4VRII, TC-14EIII

f8, 1/1250s, iso800

[Bill Dix]

Your patience paid off. This is a stunning shot of this elusive species. Congratulations. (I've also noticed that audio doesn't do much this time of year.) The detail is wonderful. This is too large in the frame for my personal taste, but seems to be your preference on many of your shots. To each his own. (Ideally I prefer not to show warblers much larger than they appear IRL, although that's a rule I've broken before.)

[Jack Backs]

Thanks Bill. You are right about my preferences. This image isn't a significant crop. Maybe 15% of the raw file was cropped.

[Moe Richard]

Stunning detail and wonderful color. Great job on the pose and perch. I'm not a fan of dark backgrounds but this one looks really good.

[Dorian Anderson]

This is a really tough and skulky bird, so you did well to get such a sharp shot. As others have noted, the bird is way too light in the frame, and the branch cutting through the head is a bit unfortunate but not a deal-breaker given the species. There also seems to be some cloning/processing funny-business going on around the tail. Did you selectively darken regions of the background to get this effect?

[Jack Backs]

You're right about the tail. That's where an extremely OOF branch was a whitish blur over the back half. I tried to bring a little contrast and detail back to it. The background was pretty much that dark.