Nesting material

[Tom Rambaut]

No sure if this comp works, with the cut off wing and the tight crop. I wanted to put the focus on the carried material. I blew the whites here and cut off the feather tips on the bottom wing. This was by far the biggest bit of nesting material that I saw any of them carry and here none of it was covering the eye. I added gray to the whites. Images looks a bit soft on here, certainly different to PS.

7d, 500mm, 1/2000 @ 5.0, 400iso, -1/3.

Thanks Tom

[James Shadle]

Tom,
Beautiful specimen, is that full breeding colors?
Nice behavior. I love BIF with nesting material - looks like Australian Pine.

The cut off wing doesn't work for me in this instance, I would prefer seeing the whole wing.
Because the sun was high and slightly behind your subject, the shadow on the body is heavy and IMO distracting.

[Tom Rambaut]

Thanks for taking the time to comment James.

Yes this one is in full breeding colours. The colours realy come out during this time of year and I recall that I did not add much to the image in post. Thought the cut off wing may be an issue - I've got 95% of it but until I'm capable of adding on feather tips this is the best I can come up with. The sun was not behind me but off to the upper right of me. I was taking images of other things and this guy came along with this big bit of nesting material so I though it was worth trying to get an image.

The plant is a type of Casuarina - In Australia there are some 66 species. Sometimes known together as She-Oaks but I do not think they are related to Oaks as such.

[Ofer Levy]

Excellent techs in here Tom. Looks sharp with great detail. The cut wing is an issue but I don't mind the shadow at all as there are still lovely detail in the shaded area.

[Tom Rambaut]

Excellent techs in here Tom. Looks sharp with great detail. The cut wing is an issue but I don't mind the shadow at all as there are still lovely detail in the shaded area.

I did not mind the shadow and the mottled look on the whites in the shadow is reflection off he water. I thought it was kind of neat.

[Stu Bowie]

Tom, the sharpness looks good from here, and overall well exposed. He must have been pretty close, for you to cut the wing. His building material a bonus.

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

A near miss, Tom. great colors and BG. That nesting material is adding a lot to the impact.