Warbling Vireo, down from the treetops.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Had a good time with this fella this weekend (this is the same individual that Wayne Wood posted a couple of days ago). Found a nice lichen-covered perch and called it down to it via audio recording. I've traditionally not had any luck with this species, but it sure made up for it this time :-) One thing I had never noticed before is the blue feet...how cool!

Canon 40D + 100-400L @400mm, aperture priority, evaluative metering, 1/1000s., f/6.3, ISO 400, +0.3 EC, antural light, handheld, ~80% full-frame.

http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w98/dancad/tn_WarblingVireo_2671-01.jpg

[Randy Stout]

Daniel:

Very nice. Perfectly exposed, sharp, nice head angle and angle in frame of body, interesting perch, complimentary background. Open beak a plus.

I would be curious the set up and tech. you used to call the bird.

The only subtle change I might consider is to darken the perch just a bit. The lichen is really cool, but competes a bit with the bird for my eyes attention.

Cheers

Randy

[Randy Stout]

Daniel:

I tried a quick tweak of the brightness of the perch. I induced some changes in the background as well, which was unintended, but curious if you think the perch brightness change is a plus or minus in your eyes?

[Mike Lentz]

The complimentary colored BG is a plus and the image is tack sharp! I like Randy's re-work as well.

[christopher galeski]

NICE SHOT DANIEL,GREAT PERCH,BG,SHARP,LIKE THE BIRD AS WELL.THANKS.

[Grace Scalzo]

FIne image, full of subtleties. I like how the brown bg compliments the bird without competing and brings out all the colors in him, and I think the perch is perfect.

[Ilija Dukovski]

Perfect image Daniel,
detail, sharpness, perch, BG...
Congrats!

[Doug Brown]

Perfect singing pose! Great exposure and sharpness. I agree with Randy about toning down the perch just a little.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Great angle, perch, details and complementing BG. I would run NR on the entire BG.

[Nicki Gwynn Jones]

I love it as presented - soft colours and open beak make this for me.
Best,
Nicki

[Stu Bowie]

Cool Perch Daniel. I see you guys are into audio calling. Just a question, how effective is it, and I presume you first have to record their calls before you can call them back. LOL. The little guy is well exposed, and love the pose with the open beak. Yep, great complimentary BG too. Great image.

[Mark Dumbleton]

Stunning!!! Love everything about this. Light, head angle, BG, perch, colours and those blue feet.

[Wayne Wood]

very nice job on this guy Dan, and what a treat he was to photograph, I love the BG and the perch looks good here. I hope he hangs around for a bit

[Karl Egressy]

Great shot, Daniel.
The perch, background and the singing pose make the picture.
I never noticed the blue legs either.
This bird species responds well to a tape.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Cool Perch Daniel. I see you guys are into audio calling. Just a question, how effective is it, and I presume you first have to record their calls before you can call them back. LOL. The little guy is well exposed, and love the pose with the open beak. Yep, great complimentary BG too. Great image.

Randy:

I would be curious the set up and tech. you used to call the bird.

Audio calling can be quite succesful, as demonstrated with this image here. Some days go better than others. Factors come into play such as time of year, sex, age, species (and even individuals of the same species react differently.) As with baiting there are certain ethical considerations to take into account. Some birds will come down right away to investigate...others will basically ignore the recording...and others will nervously fly from tree to tree...if it doesn't come down after a few minutes it is better to just leave it alone and move along as to not stress them out too much. P.S. you will have much more success with the help of a blind.

There are some bird call CDs out there (Peterson, Stokes, and I think Cornell has one too). I prefer the Stokes one as the audio clips are 30-40 seconds each. It's just a matter of converting them to mp3 and loading them on an mp3 player, and small speakers plugged into the player. Place the speakers near a selected perch, sun behind you of course, play the recording on "loop" and hope for the best. Again, if the bird doesn't come down soon enough...QUIT!

A whole book could be written about this subject and of its ethics, but I think you get the gist :-)

[Stu Bowie]

Hey Daniel, thanks so much for the feedback. Very, very interesting.