Black Crake feeding

[philperry]

I thought I would post a photo for my 100th post. And also take the opportunity to thank everyone for making BPN such a friendly and invaluable way to exchange ideas. A brilliant learning resource.

The picture shows a black crake foraging on water lilies. Probably invisible on this post - but the crake actually has an aquatic insect inside its slightly opened bill - that it has just extracted from underneath the lily pad.

Technical Details:
Canon EOS 7D
Canon 400mm f4 DO IS + 1.4x
f6.3 @ 1/1000th sec
ISO 400
Location: Kruger Park

[Juan Aragonés]

Hey Phil, I totally agree with you about BPN. This is a great site because many persons around the world are ready to share images and information and because we all are tired of listening "wow, great shot". I think that the success of BPN is due to the honest critic approach :-)

The light in thi simage is a bit intense and I would prefer to see the bird paralell to the sensor. I like a lot the pose of the crake and the inquisitive red eye looking for prey. I like this kind of images that show birds in their daily rutines and environment

:-)

[Luis Villablanca]

I agree with Juan. While I like the pose of the bird foraging, the orientation seems wrong, leaving most of the bird out of focus. Anyway, it's always for me nice to learn about species I hadn't seen before.
Thanks for posting.

[philperry]

Thanks guys. I would class this as more of a behavioural shot than a portrait. It was fun watching the crakes turn over the edges of the lily pads to snap up any insects hiding there.

[Nate Chappell]

Great job getting this one out in the open, it looks fairly soft to me, I imagine some more depth of field would have helped with the bird at this angle.

[philperry]

Nate - It is really just the eye and head that is sharp. For me this was an action/behavioural shot and I concentrated on getting the head sharp using a high shutter speed, so not much depth of field for the body. It was such interesting behaviour watching the crake flip over the lily pads searching for food.