Artistic Thrasher

Hopefully this isn't a double post, I did this last night and this morning my post is not showing up, so not sure where it went.

This is my very out of the box rendition of a Curve Billed Thrasher.

I have a family of them that lives in my cactus in my backyard, get new kids every year.

They know me and will even sing and talk to me, more like parrots, very intelligent.

This was a large Male sitting in the peanut feeder.

I thought it was a very neat shot but it need some art work to make it doable.

So this was cropped, exposure fix, sharpened.

I applied a sketch edge, then Solarized it, which made the feeder very cool, and added a texture filter to bring out some of the feathers, then increased contrast.

Deepened the blacks.

This was fun for this theme, as its extremely out of my box I played around with it for hours.

Linz, great OOTB thinking and execution:S3: I like the earthy tones and the way the feeder frames the thrasher. Nice work.

Nice image, Linz! I like the filter treatment and black BG. The feeder gives it kind of an other-worldly feel.

Cool treatment, and cooler that you are friends with the birds! I've been working on befriending some Mourning Doves (or at least getting them to halfway trust me) and then I find out they are regarded (at least by some) as a nuisance bird. But I've gotta start somewhere. At least it's not city pigeons.

Haha, Thanks Diane.

I have some very embarrassing videos of me talking to and singing with my thrashers. The females are most vocal with me and I'm allowed near the nest, nobody else is, they hide or scatter if someone comes closer than about 20 feet.

I can literally sit next to the cactus and chatter with them and the babes come out.

Unfortunately nobody has distinguishable markings so I can't tell from year to year who is who. Had a nest built up high in the cactus in August, perfect nest, horrible spot, both thrashers were juveniles. No eggs were laid thankfully this late in the year, but they are funny being young are very interactive.

I have more pictures of thrashers than anything else. Good thing I love them because they are a gardeners worst nightmare. You plant something and they see it, its dug up the next day. They dig out from under plants to get to the water at the roots, so plants have to have rocks at the base.

They make a downright mess.... like I said good thing I love them more than the garden.

This is really interesting. I love the curve of the feeder as a frame, and the stark lighting that adds drama. Great job.

The feeder makes it look surreal. Love the eye and the black BG, I might back off on the sharpening of the feathers a bit.

Excellent capture and composition. I like the colors and tones in the image.

thanks to all, this was a fun one to do. I also loved the look of the feeder at the end, looks like tesla coils or something.

I will attempt the feather suggestion, not sure how successful as it was hard to add in a texture filter to get the feathers back to looking like feathers after solarizing the rest.

Will post more comments on others after some shut eye