Red necked falcon.

Attachment 131545
Image taken on a cloudy day.
Nikon D4, Nikkor 600mm +1.4 TC.
ISO 1250, 1/1000, f8, Exp bias -1 .
Cropped for composition, Sharpened and NR on BG.

I've never seen a Red necked falcon and I've seen a lot of red necks my way LOL. What a cool looking guy. I really like the setting here and the nice light. His eye almost looks hollow from this angle. I only wish for a slight head turn toward us

Nice looking Falcon, love the green b/g, and comp looks good, I wish for better light on his eye.

Prasanna:

Lovely environment, colors, bird. Lack of significant catchlight does create the 'dead' eye look. It seems that there is a tiny bit of a catchlight that might be brought up more in post.

There is still a bit of noise in the BG, which is unexpected with the D4 at this ISO. Perhaps the exposure was raised in post?

There is also a dust bunny in the extreme left upper corner.

Lovely bird!

Cheers

Randy

Randy hit all the points above. it also seems a bit over-saturated on my screen but such a handsome raptor.

Good comments above. Additionally, I like the color blend between the bird's head & the rock perch.

Beautiful bird. Saw them in India and South Africa (may now be considered to be two species).
I like the clean background and the composition. colors look good to me.

Markus

Never seen a red necked falcon before either. This is a cool looking dude in a beautiful setting. You have good advice above. I just wonder how large a crop as I would expect to see more details on the red neck and the white. Loi

Liking the composition on the rock, all fits in the frame nicely I think, any chance of adding more light to the eye ? Sweet and colorful looking bird, maybe a slightly overdone color saturation.

Nice looking shot of this unique falcon. Like it all! We used to import these to the US for falconry in the mid 70s. They were called Red-headed Merlins but they arent really Merlins. Thanks for posting this one.