Bohemian Waxwing.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Pretty much every year flocks of this species show up during the winter time here. Usually flocks of a few individuals and up to a few dozen are common occurance, but I had the pleasure to run into a huge flock of 100+ foraging on low fruit-bearing shrubs. The noise from their calls was both peaceful and boisterous...hard to explain. After about 30 minutes of photographing them they all of a suddenly took off into the air...the sound of the flock taking flight was quite impressive! They turned and wheeled, then straight-lined it way out of sight...surely in search of another crop of winter berries to gorge themselves on.

Canon 7D + 100-400L @400mm, manual exposure, evaluative metering, 1/500s., f6.3, ISO 800, natural light, handheld, small crop for comp, a few stray twigs eliminated from right edge of the frame (patch and clone tools).

[Grace Scalzo]

Beautiful in every way. Especially impressive dof to render a bird that's in focus from head to tail.

[Marina Scarr]

The bird really pops and I like the fact that you have captured it in its habitat.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Lovely composition and colours Dan very nice indeed.

[Frank Schauf]

Nice composition, colours and BG.

[Don Nelson]

Well done -- nice soft light, bird sharp but not over sharpened, and great depth of field (even for f6.3). Wish we'd see more of these in the Waxwing flocks in winter down here in Oregon. Would you consider completely removing the left twig and then slightly recropping?

[Richard Unsworth]

Super shot Daniel; I like the twigs, balances up the image and TBH blank space is not my favorite anyhow :-)
super shades

[Bill Dix]

Lovely soft light, and beautiful bg complimenting the bird. I, too, briefly wondered about removing the left twig, but I think I like it better with than without.

[Carmelo Cannova]

Beautiful image.

Carmelo

[Robert Holguin]

What a shot!! I really like the pose and the superb detail. Very nice complementary background, and very well composed.
Well done.

[Dave Leroy]

I really like the pp'n with the very soft touch and nice soft pastels colors. I like the additional branch but would be a very strong image either way.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Dan, classic pose, and I like the markings, and colours on this fellow. The light looks nice and soft, and the BG colours compliment the waxwing perfectly.