Blue Jay + Happy New Year!!

[Daniel Cadieux]

One of my last subjects of 2011. On a slow day the Blue Jays are a good option to photograph at a certain local spot...as you pull up with your car some of them often line-up and wait in the tree-tops expecting and hoping for shelled peanut handouts. They are very fast to snatch the snacks (many times too fast for proper photos), so to slow their movements I wedged one tightly in a crevice of this perch (just out of the frame at right). This got a few of them on the log long enough as they tried to figure how to pull the peanut out. You may recognize this perch from my woodpecker image a few days ago - this is actually the result I was looking for from it.:S3:

Wishing everyone at BPN a super 2012!!

Canon 7D + 100-400L @330mm, aperture priority, evaluative metering, 1/1250s., f/6.3, ISO 400, no EC, natural light, handheld, FF.

[Sid Garige]

Dan,

Techs are perfect as usual and wonderful details and light. Great head angle and eye contact. Perch is just a little over powering IMO.
Happy new year to you too.

[gail bisson]

Ditto what Sid said!
Gail

[arash_hazeghi]

excellent Dan, love everything here. happy new year

[Robert Holguin]

Wow!!! Excellent shot. Love the pose and head angle, wonderful light, and great comp.
Well done.

[RakeshDhareshwar]

Looks like you carried that perch over to get a lot of birds :w3:w3 ! Lovely light , soft colours and light on the bird . The perch is a tad overpowering . Have a great 2012 .

[Ofer Levy]

Bird looks great! I agree with the others regarding the perch.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Dan, Happy New Year to you too. I like the slight tilt of the head of the bluejay, together with the different blues of his plumage. Since I have 'large' perches at some of my locations, Im actually fine with this as is. Cool diagonal too.

[Karl Egressy]

Very nice pose, colours and background. I wish for a more slender perch.
I also wish you a very Happy New Year and great shooting, Daniel.

[Jim Crosswell]

Nice image Daniel! I like the pose, details and BG. Happy New Year to you as well!

[Dan Brown]

Nice Corvid, Daniel! Happy New Year!