Firebird.

A strange image I know . The yellow is caused by the low morning sun shining through the wings and catching the rear of the bird. I knew I had to wind the exposure right up which resulted in a totally blown out sky. Comments greatly appreciated.

Canon 7D Mk2. Canon 400mm f5.6 L

1/1600. F5.6. ISO 1600. Processed In LR 5 and PS6.

Hi David, this looks similar to our great blue herons. I like the position of the bird, HA terrific and wings almost full display, however I think you have blown some of the whites on the bird leaving no detail, also the blacks appear to be blocked. Some noise noted underwings, bird has little detail... TFS

Hi Ann. Thanks for your comments. Here is a repost with the exposure pulled back a little.Attachment 178139

Like the idea behind this one. Agree with what Ann has said.

The repost looks much better. The splash of warm light on the splayed primaries is really unique. This is a very artistic shot, and that overrides concerns of head angle, feather detail etc.

Well, I will go the other way here. I like the original much better. But for the far underwing that is too dark. Many folks do not realize that even in white sky conditions that the light still has direction. Here, the far underwing is actually shaded. For my repost I ran my NIK 50-50 recipe on a feathered selection of the too-dark underwing (as I saw it) and still had to pull the curve up a bit.

with love, artie