The Humble Black-capped Chickadee.

Almost lost among the owl activity this winter is the local resident Black-capped Chickadee. Poor guy is used to more attention than that during the winter! In snowy areas you can place a perch low to the ground to use the snow as a natural reflector...this one is about 18 inches off the ground and both the under belly and under the perch are nicely lit by the light bouncing off the ground. BTW I kinda like the smaller curved twig, but did think long about losing it physically at the setup after seeing a few images with it.

Canon 7D + 100-400L @365mm, manual exposure, evaluative metering, 1/320s., f/6.3, ISO 800, natural light, handheld, small crop for comp (90% FF), darkened pupil.

Sweet image, I would lose the twig, especially since it is a setup.
If it did not go through the tail, it would look fine, but it is distracting for me.

Very nice! I like the twig -- it frames the bird and adds an extra touch to a perch. I want to see more detail in highlights, and especially shadows, but I'm probably spoiled (or poisoned?) by Nik's Detail Extractor.

Perfect exposure and details. The bird, with it's "coy" expression is sweet. Love the bg and the comp too. I'd definitely lose the twig and also touch up the perch behind the bird (white wash and 'exposed' portions)

Nice capture Daniel. I like the angled pose but I too would lose the branch, dosnt add to the shot IMO. Maybe squeak a bit more detail out of the blacks. Beautiful detail and BG too. Well done.

I have really enjoyed keeping up to date with all your sweet images this winter Daniel. Congrats buddy and well jealous of your GGOs and shooting time :). Can I come visit if I bring BC beer?

:cheers:

Jamie

Another sweet image Daniel - I'd probably lose the twig behind the bird as well,
Greg

Daniel Sir:
Marvelous image.Colors of BG,perch are nicely complimenting with wing and tail colors of chickadee,no need to remove the vertical branch.
However removing it will not hurt the beauty of the image.
Rest as usual absolutely superb.

Regards,
Satish.

Terrific shot!!
Wonderful background, great pose, excellent details, and very nice perch.
I agree with the majority on removing the twig.
Well done.

Hi Peter, thanks. I use USM in CS6. I forget the exact settings but radius and threshold are pretty much permanently set at 1.3 and 0 respectively.

Sweet shot, sweet subject...but lose the vertical twig