White-tailed Kite with a Twig

[Tin Man Lee]

Took this yesterday half an hour before sunset.

Canon 1D Mark IV, 500mm f4, 1.4x III, f6.3, 1/2500s, ISO 800

CS5, Nik Viveza, Color efex, removed a few distracting branches

C&C welcome.

[Karl Egressy]

Nice flight shot. I like the dangling feet showing the talons and the wing/tail position.

[arash_hazeghi]

this is so sweet man, you were lucky you were so close to this elusive raptor!

[Melissa Groo]

Absolutely awesome capture! I love this. Beautiful pose, light, and IQ. Simply stunning. Even love that shadow of the stick.

[dankearl]

The detail and focus is just off the charts.
A terrific photo of a terrific bird.

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

Love the pose ,light exposure and detail. I wonder if the shadow in the eye can be lightened a little?

[Tin Man Lee]

Thank you all! I went with a good friend who was able to predict the path where the kite took the twig to build the nest. It's an interesting location where we could stand on top of a hill and got almost eye level with the bird, but there was just a small opening between two trees where we could photograph the kite so the light couldn't be shined directly. It was a thrilling experience to take almost full frame shot of the kite (except cropping a bit on top and bottom) when he hovered right in front of us. This got to be my closest encounter of the white tailed kite. We were jumping up and down after the shot... or maybe its just me.

Thanks Cheryl, I have already lightened up the shadow of the right eye, but i guess its under too much shadow so it didn't get much details. I can try to lighten a little more.

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Awesome shot...great pose and the eye just draws me in. very well exposed...techs are perfect.

[Frank Schauf]

A great dynamic situation, congratulations.