Eye to eye.

[Marc Mol]

4.44pm

A Yellow-billed Oxpecker comes eye to eye with his large host that was out early to feast on the recently dropped sausage fruits.
This old guy had dozens of Red & Yellow-billed Oxpeckers on him feasting on the many open scars & sores that he acquires whilst engaging in territorial battles with other males on the river.

D3s 500VR 1/100s f/6.3 ISO800 F/F. Sth Luangwa NP- Zambia. Nov 2011. (Looking back at this I just got away with 1/100s, not ideal of course.:e3)

C & C most welcome

Cheers
Marc

[dankearl]

Excellent close up with great details around the eye.
You can see the motion from the slow SS on the bird, but still very nice at that speed and
a really shot.

[PhilCook]

Quite amazing considering the shutter speed used, lots of interesting fine detail showing through, always love fine detail !

Love it as is, and cant see any room for improvement personally....... but just experimenting by scrolling and cropping off the ear to give a different look and feel to the image, without the ear it is more difficult to tell what animal it is { from an Aussies point of view }...but with the ear removed it has a rather sad/emotional feel to it with what5 looks like a tear in his/her eye...just a thought

[Ken Watkins]

Marc,

This is certainly a different composition, which works very well for me. I might experiment further with crops does this work?

[Rachel Hollander]

Marc - nice detail coming through and agree with your own comments about the ss. I prefer your crop as it feels like it is at least equally about the hippo and the oxp. I feel Ken's crop changes it to more about the oxp and thus an avian image.

TFS,
Rachel

[Morkel Erasmus]

I like this very much as posted, Marc. Great OOTB thinking in terms of "seeing the moment", and framing it creatively...leaving the ear in was a nice touch.
Great detail, texture and colour throughout. The head of the bird is quite sharp for the SS/FL combo.
:5

[Steve Canuel]

Nice tight portrait Marc. Great textures and patterns to explore. Like the OP, also like Ken's option.