Evening Grosbeak

[Mike Osborne]

I took this shot in Algonquin Park, Canada. It was from a set-up perch stuck into a snowbank at the end of a road in a shaded area. Seed was used to attract birds.

Canon 7d, 500f4, tripod/wimberley head, no flash
1/400 f5.6 ISO400

One round of sharpening was done in Canon Digital Photo Pro and cropping to vertical from horizontal in Photoshop CS4

[Sachin Saraf]

Beautiful bird and capture...love that perch and composition..Excellent.

[Robert Rommel]

Wonderful pose and background. Interesting perch. The snow on the beak tip is frosting on the cake!

[christopher galeski]

very nice image,nice pose and perch,like the BG.well done.

[gail bisson]

Welcome to BPN! Great post. I like the perch with the moss. Nice moody BG and good IQ. I like the snow on the beak,
Gail

[Stu Bowie]

A big welcome to BPN Mike, and hope you enjoy your stay. Super pose, on a great lichen covered perch. Lovely yellows and blacks on this species, but I feel the grosbeak is a touch under exposed. Since this is a set up, could you move the perch to create a more uniform BG.

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

Hi and welcome. I like the pose here and the really cool diagonal perch.

[Robert Holguin]

Wonderful shot. I really like the pose, great perch, and great comp.
Well done.

[Jim Crosswell]

Great image Mike! I like the pose, perch and BG. I would clone out the moss in the LLC that is not attached to the perch.

[Mike Osborne]

Thanks everyone for the compliments and criticism. Stuart, I don't think I could have moved the perch in this case. Another photographer had set up the perch in an area of the park where many people feed the birds. If I moved the perch far I would have risked losing the birds (this is a first for me to get decent shots of this species). The spot where the setup was had a cedar background in almost every angle, there was fresh snow sitting on the boughs and were causing drastic highlights in the background. As it was, to get the background I had, I had my tripod stuck in a snowbank and one knee up on the snow as well. There were also 5 other photographers that may have objected as well. Thank you though for the critique.

Jim I noticed the little spot after I was done cropping it but decided to leave it to see if anyone else noticed it. I entered this photo in a competition locally through a photo club I belong to, I'll have to check if that crop included this little spot as well.