Hoffman's Woodpecker - Costa Rica

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s...dpecker_ND.jpg

I created this image of another life list addition while awaiting the morning start of our white water rafting trip down the Pacaure River. I spotted this female going in and out of a hole in the truck of a dead palm tree in the farmer's field adjacent to the Rio Tropicales Operations Center. She's blocking the view of nest hole with her body in this image.

The angle was steep and I couldn't get any closer because the field was fenced off with barbed wire. Nevertheless I had good morning light despite the fact that the bird moved into the shadow occasionally. This was image had the best head turn but is was one where I didn't use any fill flash. Unfortunately the fungus just above her head intersects the bill. I decided to leave it the frame but perhaps I should have cloned out the lower portion.

Canon 40D, Sigma 50-500mm, ISO 640, 1/1600 sec, F7.1 - A big crop here at ~ 30% of full frame. Perhaps a bit more noise reduction in the BG is needed as well.

BG looks fine. Like the composition here! Fungus is a little distracting close to the bill.
Like the lighting here. Well done

Pretty neat to have seen all these different species Stephen. You've dealt with the situation best you could. I would "fix" the fungus. I would also tone down the sky as it feels a little too electric (that might also help with the small trace of chromatic abberation that is evident). Glad you had a great time, can't wait to here about your trip from you in person :-)

Thanks Mark and Dan. Here's the re-worked image with a portion of the fungus near the bill cloned out. It looks much better.

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s...r_filtered.jpg