Avian fireworks .....

Hi all ... hope this tight enough for this month theme .
If not .... the mods can remove the prefix and it will go into normal account .

This Mandarin drake was captured at local ground in my town . One of the long term invaders , once a refugee from a collection . This species is not so successful as other avian invaders i.e. Egyptian or Canadian Goose .... who became a " pest " over the decades and need to be controlled by the government . Not allowed to be shot , just remove the eggs if they are found .

Canon EOS 1Dx
EF 500 IS L + 1,4 TC
HH

F 8 ; Iso 4000 ; 1/ 1000 sec

Processed with DPP 4 and PSCC 2021 ; cropped to fit into the theme to roughly 50 % of FF

Thanks for watching and commuting to my previous posting

Cheers Andreas

That's amazing detail as the feathers get finer towards the beak. Not so sure about the eye reflection as that looks a bit too metallic and not so natural to me, but super clear colours. Maybe one day I will get there!

Andreas, sure looks handsome to me. The colors pop nicely on the high key backdrop.

You've retained a good bit of detail amigo.... the border around the eye is very different from what we're used to seeing. It almost looked unreal.

I might have opted to go a slight bit less boxy on the crop to give a little room to the left, but overall you did this Mandarin justice.

Nicely shown!

Awesome detail Andreas! I actually like the eye reflection myself. I do agree with Brian re: the crop and would give more room in front. The colors here are also terrific. Great theme candidate!

Hi Andreas, neat image, works for the theme for me. Wonderful colors and detail... I also would add a tad more on the left side of the image. Thank you for sharing.

I'd like to see more of the face and more space if possible but love those colors and detail. TFS.

Fireworks for sure. I don't mind the crop as is. Lovely detail.