Mourning Dove

[joel quenneville]

Although this is a plain bird, I think that the colorful BG give this image vitality often missing in photos of this species. What do you think?

All comments welcome.

Taken last fall from a blind in my backyard.
1/800s
f/8
ISO 1000
Sigma 120-300 + 2x TC @ 380mm
Nikon D300

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Very nice eye contact and details look good considering the high ISO. I would apply noise reduction on the background.

[Robert Amoruso]

The BG goes with this guy well. Agree with the NR recommendation for the BG Joel.

[Juan Aragonés]

The BG doesn´t work for me here because the overall luminosity of the bird and the BG are almost the same. I would try to tone don the BG a little bit to increase the contrast between Bg and bird. Agree about more noise reduction to the BG. The bird´s pose, eye contac and head turn works fine for me.

Please, have a look to my coments on this related thread http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php?t=22562