White-winged Dove

When on my trip to Arizona one of the birds that I wanted a photo of was White-winged Dove. They are birds that show up as vagrants along the east coast, mostly in fall migration and birds that I spend a lot of time searching for, so despite the fact that they are are super abundant in Arizona, they are a bird that I wanted a photo of. However getting one perched on a nice perch and not an electric wire or fence post proved to be very difficult to do. So I was very happy when on the last morning this bird landed on this cactus. It was cloudy and a bit dark out when I took this picture. Cropped to vertical.

Canon 1dx mark ii and Canon 600 f4 ii + 1.4x iii. ISO 1250, F8, SS 1/800

This is a technically perfect very nice image. Great use of d-o-f to get the feet and the horizontal part of the cactus sharp. Do you know if this is a young bird? I think that the adults have some gorgeous blue colors somewhere on the face.

with love, artie

Thanks Artie. Young bird for sure for exactly the reason you said. I was surely a bit lucky with the DOF as well as the bird leaned forward and brought the head on the same plane as the feet.

Very neat perch. Nice pose on the bird with a great background. Tack Sharp.

Lovely shot of this dove. Great pose, perch and background. Yes, the adult has a striking red-orange iris surrounded by a lovely blue orbital ring, lacking in this youngster. Curiously, this bird seems to have a very long and light-colored bill compared to other images of the species. Maybe it's the perspective?

The beak does look large Bill. Probably just individual variation but could be enhanced by the angle as well.

I love the way the toes are splayed among the cactus' needles. Pretty cool image.