Gila Woodpecker on blooming Saguaro

[Terry Sohl]

Captured this past spring outside of Tucson at a wonderful B&B. Saguaros were blooming, and birds were taking advantage. These guys would just stick their entire heads down the blooms.

Canon 20D, 400 5.6L, 430EX @ -1 2/3.

[Judy Lynn Malloch]

Wonderful composition Terry with a beautiful pose, color and excellent detail. Sharp and I love the eye contact. So nice that you were able to get everything sharp from head to tail. Fine work and many thanks for sharing. A slight head turn would have been lovely but love this as posted too.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Great find and setting. I agree regarding head turn and wish for a lower angle if that was possible. I might increase the saturation a few points.

[Arthur Morris]

Sharp with wonderful flowers and a nice bird, but you needed a long ladder as your angle of inclination is too steep; the bird if far above your position yielding a less than intimate image.

To reduce the angle of inclination add the 1.4X TC and move back. As you will have to focus manually it would make sense to have the rig on a decent tripod.