Red-cockaded Woodpecker

[Bruce Enns]

Hi, this is a tagged wild bird photographed at Three Lakes Wildlife Management Area south of Kissimmee, Florida. I feel a bit guilty and very lucky for having seen this bird (actually one of a group of three), after spending only about 15 minutes on the road inside the north entrance to the WMA. I had just turned the car around after my wife and I decided that it didn't look nearly as good for bird photography as the other places we had visited along the Canoe Creek Road area. There were three birds in this small group near the road. This is a substantial crop shot with a Canon 100-400 mm at 400 mm and a 50D, from the car. 1/320 sec at f/5.6 ISO 200, EV+0.33 AV mode.

Comments and critique welcome as always (yes, I know the head angle could be better, but beggars can't be choosers!)

We had a great time following Jim Neiger's excellent Central Florida Site guide available here:
http://www.birdsasart.com/siteguides.htm#CENTRAL%20FLORIDA%20SITE%20GUIDE%20 AVAILABLE

Cheers!
Bruce

[Lana Hays]

Bruce
You lucky devil. I've only seen them at a distance with no chance for an image. You've addressed the head angle but I'd sure be proud of this one. It looks a bit soft.....probably due to the large crop but I think you did pretty well given the circumstances.

[Bruce Enns]

Thanks Lana...yes the posted bird looks a tad soft to me too, and I see that the size of the image is only 57KB, but the original 199KB. I've had similar trouble with uploading another image as well.