Morning Call...

I was out yesterday morning at my staked out position for the GBH nest at Wako waiting on the male to arrive when this beauty flew in and landed right in that very early sun. I was sooo conflicted. It took a few seconds for me to decide to change all my settings and go for this image as I was afraid I'd miss a "fly in" to the nest in the early light. Then I thought of Artie's challenge when I posted one of these early last year "Go out and get one at eye level!". So I took the chance... The GBH took another 45 minutes for the first arrival , BTW.
1DMKIIN 400 DO ISO 500 F4@1/400

Good calling pose, David. And the background colors are amazing. Not too sure about all of the empty space to the right, but it does show off those colors. Would like to see the bird farther to the right, or this might work well as a vertical.

Dan

Wonderful lighting and I love the calling pose David. Great eye contact and the colors in the BG are gorgeous. IMO I would crop a tad off the top to make it more of a horizontal crop rather than an almost square crop. Congratulations on a lovely image.

Nice catch, David! That gorgeous background so nicely complements the red/yellow patch on his wing. Judy's crop suggestion sounds good.

There are alot of qualities I like in this image. I like the sharpness, pose and exposure of the bird. The backround is also pleasing. In the repost I cropped the image and cleaned up some of the bottom. Thought you would like to see another way of looking at it.