Brown-headed Cowbird Courtship Display.

While scouting a kingfisher nest from my car five male Brown-headed Cowbirds, and one female, landed on a fence on the driver's side of my car. They looked nice, but being on a bland fence I thought not much of it...until one of the males started courting the female. Drop the binos, pick up the camera, and fire away!

They allowed one series before dropping down out of sight in the tall grass below, and I thought I had nothing good on it as the male was angled away from me...but to my surprise and delight on this particular frame its head was turned parallel to me.

Canon 7D + 500mm f/4 II + 1.4TC, manual exposure, evaluative metering, 1/500s., f/5.6, ISO 400, natural light, handheld with lens resting on car window opening, cropped for composition, brought out colour and texture on fence as it was quite washed away (use a combination of burn and sponge tools)

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brought out colour and texture on fence as it was quite washed away (use a combination of burn and sponge tools)

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Daniel, use a Luminosity adjustment layer, mask and use the Opacity slider to get the correct level of 'depth/tone', works a treat, just applied it. :w3

The pose and behavior trumps any deficits in the perch imo...You really nailed the height of the display here and a strong head angle to boot...things turned out well given the relatively slow shutter speed too!

Great display caught here.
Really like the spayed tail feathers and that great HA.Blacks look awesome and you manage to show some nice iridescence as well.
I agree the perch is not the best but not a deal breaker at all.
I feel that it needs a 1 degree of CCW rotation,
Gail

Excellent courting display captured, Daniel.

Nice clear shot of this guy displaying. The techs look perfect and the feather detail really shines. He really pops well off of that nice green BG as well. The perch dose not bother me. Nice shot Daniel.