Freightened Horned Lark attempting to hide behaviour.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Very cool to witness this little fella quickly dig a hole in the sand and crouch in it. It was digging so fast and furious cup that all images from that sequence feature too much blur on the face (which it was using, along with its feet)!! At least it froze when attempting to camouflage itself:cool:

Canon 40D + 100-400L @400mm, manual exposure, evaluative metering (+1.7 stops, metered off sand), 1/500s., f/6.3, ISO 800, natural light, handheld lying flat on sand, cropped top and bottom but full-frame horizontally.

[Marina Scarr]

Daniel, This is an awesome capture and getting low really paid off. I love all the colors, the details, the pose and the way the Lark is looking toward you. What a great feel to this image. It came together very nicely.

[Randy Stout]

Daniel:

Fascinating behaviour captured well. Pose cries out for this crop.

Cheers

Randy

[Ken Watkins]

Fabulous behavoural image, and extremely "cute".

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Echo previous comments. Cute and fab with the tonalities. Good job Daniel, well done. :)

[Melvin Grey]

Very interesting behavioural image and accompanying notes - any idea what was the perceived threat? Very good quality capture and presentation.

[Gary Hamilton]

The behavior and composition work hand in hand to display this lark beautifully. Love the low angle and how the sand and pebbles provide context for the behavior. OOF foreground and BKGD are perfect. Very well done. Cheers.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Hey guys thanks! Melvin, the lark was hiding from a raptor.

[Aidan Briggs]

Wow, the pose from the lark shows off this behavior so well!! Great techs, and nice comp. Though this angle works well, I'm wondering if a slightly higher angle might have shown more of the bird.

Keep them coming!!

[Pieter de Waal]

Fantastic behavioural image and well captured - colours, sharpness, exposure and composition. I've not heard of this kind of behaviour before and find it fascinating.

[Stephen Stephen]

Dan I live this low angle image and the eye contact. Now I can really see the behavior that you had described to me. Thanks for sharing.