Pallid Cuckoo

[Paul Burdett]

This Pallid Cuckoo was taken a few weeks ago in Brisbane. A group of us were watching it fly between one tree and another, over a period of around an hour or so. However, it never landed closer to us. Eventually they left the area, but I stayed for another hour or so photographing other birds and hoping the Cuckoo would "play ball" so to speak. I'm glad I stayed, as it finally landed on a log and so I took a number of shots. However, there were a lot of branches from a nearby bush extending from near the bird's beak out to the right. Cloning them out would have been a pain, so I cropped the image, added canvas to the left and right of the bird and used the content aware fill in Photoshop. This, along with a few other tweaks resulted in this image, which I'm happy with.
7Dii, 100-400@300mm, 1/1250th sec, f8, iso800 AV mode HH.

[Kamal Hari Menon]

Beautiful bird, perch and pose.

Unfortunate that the light is not very favorable..

Im not sure about the empty space on top left..

TFS.. this is a new bird for me

[Paul Burdett]

Hi Kamal. Thank you for the feedback. The top left is the sky...I'm ok with that area of the frame.

[William Dickson]

One of your best IMO Paul...You got some great detail on the bird. Nice perch. I could see a version with the sky cloned out, but I like this as is. The head turn works well with your chosen crop, although a little more in front of the bird would also work. Well done, and staying longer paid, big style here. I would be happy with this as well. TFS

Will

[Paul Burdett]

Hi William. Thanks so much for the kind feedback. I tend to stick around longer than most, as many times I have thought "I'll just go back and wait a little longer" and this time it paid off. Cheers.

[Dorian Anderson]

Great look at this bird! Not sure I've seen an image of this species before, so bonus points for that. All things considering, the add canvas strategy worked fairly well.
Bigger issue is the really steep light which has cast the bird's entire face head in shadow. The bird is really far down and right in the frame; if you have the room
to move him up and and left, then it would help the composition.

[Paul Burdett]

Thanks Dorian...I may re-edit at some stage. Cheers.