Auckland Is Banded Dotterel in the rain

Endemic to the remote Auckland Is group in the New Zealand sub-Antarctic. The picture was taken on Enderby Is in January during a rain shower. It captures something of the atmosphere and environment. For most of the year the weather is cold, wet and windy. The spectacular landscape is covered with cushion plants, mosses, lichens, ferns, herbs, grasses, stunted trees and shrubs in sheltered places and there are even tiny terrestrial orchids.
Canon 5DIII + 300 mm f/2.8L II + 2x III extender, hand-held.
Av priority, f/7.1, 1/320 sec, ISO 400, +2/3 EV.
PP in Canon DPP: crop, DLO, USM, RAW to tiff. PS Elements: adjust shadows/highlights, downsize tiff to output jpeg, USM.

One can feel the cold looking at this shot, but the bird seems to have plenty of padding. A very decent shot. It sounds a very interesting place botanically as well as birds.

I like the low angle, carpet like perch, BG colour, wet look and composition. Nice image Ian.

This little fella looks quite miserable, and the visible precipitation streaks and beading drops on the plumage help put this into context. I love the BG and mossy perch. I do wish the sticks in lower right corner were not there. Just a tad crunchy on the details due to aggressive sharpening. Super image overall!

Love the wet plumage. Stunning.

Just love this frame!
Excellent to know the behind the scenes of the image! That wonderful habitat reminds me of the highlands of Ecuador. Nice specimen, the sharp eye looks great as the soft light. Please keep them coming!

nice light, ambiance and the rain which adds more interest. I agree with Dan that he is oversharpened too much but everything else is great

TFS

Beautiful pose and the scene is so sureal. agree on the sharpening. but a good one here.

Thanks to all who kindly gave feedback on this post - much appreciated. I have reprocessed the image with only half the amount of output sharpening. I think it is better - a good lesson learned when dealing with wet feathers.
Thanks for looking, Ian

Superb image of beautiful bird in rain. Very nice pose, beautiful FG, BG and composition. sharpness. is perfect in the re post.

Regards,
Satish.

Hi Satish,
Thank you for reassuring me that I am on the right track regarding the sharpness of this image.
Regards, Ian

Excellent repost. A standout image to be sure. More, please!

Excellent light, details and bg.

Repost looks much better as far as sharpening goes, well done! You just need to re-lighted the reflection in the eye as it seems darker now.

The repost did eliminate the crunchiness. Well done. Love the bird. I would evict the bare stick in the lrc.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Arthur Morris

The repost did eliminate the crunchiness. Well done. Love the bird. I would evict the bare stick in the lrc.

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Thank you Arthur and others for feedback on my repost. You have given me some good suggestions to work with - I will clone out the dead twigs and brighten the eye highlight a touch.

OK, this is the last roll of the dice. Thanks to all who gave feedback - it was much appreciated and I think the image is much better for all your good advice.
Thanks, Ian

Well done on the repost. Very well done and I like it a lot better.