American Avocet "Breeding Plumage"

[James Salywoda]

American Avocet
Southern California

A lot of these birds are in full breeding plumage or still in transition.

Nikon D300s AFS 600 F4
1/2000 F4 ISO 800

Thanks For Looking

Jim

[Ilija Dukovski]

Wow, that is beautiful! The neck color is fantastic, perfect flight pose,
eye contact on top of that. The BG actually is excellent too.
How did you get the deep gray, can you tell us what is the BG?
Is it water?

Ilija

[Jim Crosswell]

Another top quality image James! I like the sharpness and curves in this one.

[arash_hazeghi]

excellent Jim, love that breeding plumage, they haven't arrived here yet

[Arthur Morris]

Not my favorite wing position but it works very well here. Technically perfect as expected.

[Dumay de Boulle]

Top stuff this James...Great work

[stuart wanuck]

you did it again great flight image clear and sharp

[Dan Brown]

Another beauty James! Great job given the muted lighting! An inspiration:S3:

[Dan Busby]

As always, a great shot James. Sharp to the very tip of the beak! Very nice exposure plays to the soft colors of the neck and feet.

[Pieter de Waal]

As usual James excellent image, razor sharp bill and lovely soft light to bring out the detail and colours,

[James Salywoda]

How did you get the deep gray, can you tell us what is the BG?
Is it water?

Ilija

Thanks guys for the comments

Ilija the bg is water as it was a cloudy stormy morning when this was taken so your seeing the reflected clouds.

[Doug Brown]

Sharp sharp sharp! Love the breeding plumage! Wing position not my favorite, but not bad.

[Ofer Levy]

You did very well with what looks like low light - awesome!

[Harshad Barve]

Top class !!
TFS

[Nico Steenberg]

Super sharp and well exposed IMG AWESOME STUFF :eek: