American Kestrel with Dragonfly

This beautiful male is the same male Kestrel that I encountered last year. Last year he showed up at a small spot at my local wildlife area. He was very cooperative and let me get within 25' of him.
He stayed in this spot for three days and hunted insects non stop for three or four hours every morning. The fourth morning I showed up, he was gone, and was never seen again.
About a month ago as I was checking my local spot out and was not seeing much due to the heat and the time of year, then this guy showed up in the exact same spot again.
He stayed for five days this time and was hunting lots of different insects including many Dragonflies that he caught in the air.
After looking at the files from last year, I realized that last year he was there starting on the 22nd of Sept. and he showed up this year on the 24th of Sept, only two days different from last year!
I am praying that lady Kestrel shows up again this year as she stayed for almost two months last year.

1DX---840mm---f7.1---ss1/2500---ISO800---HH from truck@ 8:00am---30% crop

Thanks as always for looking and for your input. I appreciate it.

David

Superb image David, awesome details, the prey item, the clean BG and nice perch makes this image. You are lucky to go back to the same spot and am glad you found him again! Well done. Cheers,
Sanjeev

Hi David, the dragon fly looks so big in this image! great details and colors. If you have more room, a little more on the top and left for me. This guy must have been a migrant since he stayed only for a few days and gone. TFS. Loi

Thanks for the comments guys.

Loi, Yes the dragonfly looks pretty big but he caught even bigger ones that I have shots of but this one is cool because he is holding it up so the wings can be seen nicely. Thanks again.

Superb David, the light has worked oh so well on those wings of the Dragonfly. :cheers:

That truck must be worth it's weight in Gold. :bg3:

TFS
Steve

Very nice image of the kestrel. The bird and the dragonfly are pefectly sharp, the HA is good with an awesome BG. Well done David and thanks for sharing

Outstanding - love the light reflected off the dragonfly wings. Regards, Ian

David I would have been happy with just the Dragonfly, the whole image is excellent.

Cheers Keith.

Your dragonfly is in the perfect position to really make this image special. Of course, the raptor, perch and perfect BG don't hurt it either.

How cool is that! Very thoughtful of this kestrel to pay you a visit again:S3:. You could not have asked for a better position on the dragonfly. Looks like there may be a bit of masking bleeding on eh perch edges on the lower part, but man I am drooling over this image!

Awesome capture and perfect light too!

Stunning shot. How nice of the dragonfly to give you a perfect wing spread. Not to mention the head angle of the kestrel, the perch and bg. Hoping to see more of him, and his lady.

Just too good, David. Super frame.

Hi David,

This is a great image. I really like that the dragonfly is parallel in the frame. I would only consider maybe running a bit of noise reduction to the background? Greta job.

If there is a perfect image this is it. Everything... bird, perch, prey and background work so well together. Thank you for sharing.

Thanks so much everyone for the nice comments. I'm glad you guys and gals like the frame. I will post some more of him soon.

You know you can't go wrong with such a sweet image of a usually very difficult species to get close and eye level with. The dragonfly is very cool! The falcon is posed nicely on the perch, especially in regards to the tail clearing and not transecting the perch.

What can I say great capture image and bg rocks

You must have treated him well last year then! Great shot all round but its the positioning of the dragonfly that gives the final polish

WOW!!!!! Amazing composition, everything came together in this image. Incredible IQ, especially handheld. Congrats!

Stunning image David. Love the wing spread of the dragonfly... perfect! And really like the clean perch and BG. Techs and light look super. All round cracker image. Well done!

All been said. I,ll be a spoilsport and say a little something in the background would raise it for me. Still a superb take though.
JohnR

Hi Dave, a bit late to the party, and I would celebrate this shot too. Excellent detail and sharpness, and his catch, especially showing its wingspread a real bonus. Big congrats.

Thanks again everyone !!

In those five days I shot thousands of frames. Many with dragonflies in his feet as he was eating them, but when he picked his head up with this one in his beak, I knew it was a special frame the second I hit the shutter button. Well, actually it was right after I looked on the LCD to confirm it was sharp.:S3:

Thanks.

David an exceptionally good image so detailed and a wonderful pose with the prey.
It is such a good shot that I hesitate to make any suggestions but I think I would consider a slightly smaller crop i.e. make the bird a little smaller in the frame, also perhaps desaturate and lighten the background slightly to have the effect of reducing contrast. Having tried that I may well of course just revert back to the original.:S3:

There's only one thing wrong with this image..... Your name is'nt on it :w3. Get it on with pride :S3: Well done

Wow, what an awesome image David! One of the best bird images I have seen for a while.
I'm seeing a brown halo around the bird, perch and dragonfly - easily fixed with a bit of work in PS.
Fantastic work! :cheers:

Ah, everything has been said. Amazing image! Congratulations.

Hi David, wow your kestrel is so more attractive than our Aussie one:w3
Love the exquisite detail here, the attractive curved perch and all set off against the ultar soft BG. Top image David! :cheers:

Outstanding capture. Congratulations!
Tord

Great image David!

:cheers:
Wow! 31 comments in less than 24 hours! Must be a new record.
Well done,
gail

Just like to add my congratulations to this thread for a SUPERB image! Sharon

everything has been said Dave, an excellent frame by all counts

Beautifully sharp image David. Beautiful position on the prey.

Superb image David. Well done.

Wow! Thanks so much everyone. I,m glad you fine folks like it as much as I do and I greatly appreciate all the comments. It's going on the wall of a fish and game office along with 7 other pieces in a 36"X24" giclee canvas format.
Thanks again.

What a superb shot, David! Love the pose, prey, perch, exposure, BG and HA! Very well done!!

Pretty nice raptor and the insect makes the image even more intense! I would run NR on BG as is a bit noisy, head angles is not optimal and light seems a tad harsh. All in all an very good image.

William, I just changed to Photoshop CC on a new computer and didn't change my signature to the brush tool yet. Thanks, I will do that before my next post.

Thanks again everyone.

Juan, thats the one thing that I wish this shot had, a bit better HA, but you take what you can get!! Thanks.