July Theme Green Heron Chicks

[John Hawkins]

I came upon these two last Sunday at JN "Ding" Darling Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel Island, FL. I stayed awhile and watched them as they both seemed to freeze and were staring off at something behind me. It was a Red Shoiulder Hawk about 75 yards behind me up on an electric pole. They didn't move an inch for about 15 minutes when the hawk finally flew away. Data= ISO 800, 500mm, 1.7 ev, f/6.3, flash .
Thanks for looking,
John

[Randy Stout]

John:

Fits well with this months theme.

I like the different poses, sharp.

Challenging lighting here. Flash was a good call to help you tame the strong backlighting. The blown out area along the standing chicks leg might be able to be toned down a bit with a linear burn selection, which could also be used on the hotter areas of the perch.

Busy background, but the birds do stand out pretty well.

How has the bird activity been at Ding recently?

Cheers

Randy

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Tough conditions to take a shot...you got good poses and handled the light well.

A tad crop from bottom might help the balance of the image. Is it a big crop? if so, the IQ has not held up that well. What was the shutterspeed? which camera? That is very helpful when giving critiques.

[Katie Rupp]

Thanks for sharing the story behind the image as for me, experiencing those kinds of moments really adds to the joy of photography. You did really well with the harsh light.

[John Hawkins]

Oops, shutter speed 1/250. Used my Sony A700 and a Sigma 50-500 mm lens. It was a large crop, maybe 50%? I don't know how to find out how much my crop was. It has been very slow lately at Ding Darling. They just found out they had a young Black Bear. It triggered one of their night cameras. They are not sure how it got there. It was found at the Baileys Crossing part of Ding Darling

[Paul Randall]

Agree with the above, tough lighting but handled fairly well. That yawn is a big bonus too :)