Bosque Update 1: Northern Harrier

Just finished the Festival of the Cranes bird photography workshop and thought I'd file a field report from the Bosque. It's definitely better than last year! There's plenty of corn on the refuge. Geese numbers are good and Sandhill Crane numbers are fair but rising. They've added a new walking trail at the south end of the Marsh Loop that takes you south of the cornfield. The weather has been on the warm side and that has impacted bird counts negatively. Overall things are looking up! Thanks to the Animals for all their hard work to make the Bosque a better place (there's a nice poster of them in the Visitor Center along with some images taken by each of them).

Here's a Northern Harrier photo from yesterday afternoon.

Canon 1D Mark IV, 600mm + 1.4x, f/6.3, 1/3200, ISO 400, manual exposure, hand held

Beautiful BIF, nice pose, good contact and the BG showing habitat looks great, loved the DOF and details too.. very well done.

Awesome Shot!!!! Exellent all around composition great pose and bg...:)

Man! you sure do have the Harriers down! Another fabulous one here Doug! I'd love to have one half as good!

Hi Doug, good wing position, well placed in the frame, and I like the eye contact. This is really sharp, and the harrier is separated nicely from that colourful BG. That strip of water through the BG puts this up a notch. Congrats on a fine capture.

Beautiful harrier shot, for all the reasons noted above. My shoulders ache just thinking about hand-holding a 600 + TC.

Wonderful shot. You must have had your Wheaties, hoisting the 600+1.4.

THis is just superb Doug. I love the pose, eye contact and warm light. I am curious if you had to do much cropping. (out of interest, that's all). Cheers mate. :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ákos Lumnitzer

I am curious if you had to do much cropping. (out of interest, that's all). Cheers mate. :)

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Here's a screen capture of the crop from Lightroom Akos. It's a significant chunk of full frame. Why do you ask?

Congratulations on another fine Harrier shot Doug! I actually think this is one of my favorites. The blue strip in the BG being level with the bird seems to highlight this gorgeous animal! :)

I said I was interested to know. It has nothing to do with people cropping for their lack of ability in fieldcraft, because I know you are more than skilled at that! :) This tells me that you still need to be pretty close to the bird; I suspect they'd be as skittish as our Australian Swamp Harriers? It helps to support my long dilemma of why a 600mm would be my preferred lens over a 500mm :) Thanks mate! :cool:

Doug that's a great shot, like Kristen I as well like that blue streak. Thanks for mentioning the Animals, sounds like all that hard work is paying off. Maybe next year there will be more than the three of us. We cut seventeen windows this year. Maybe I'll even get a chance to use them sometime soon.
Cheers
gary

Thank you for the updates.

Great shot, love the stare.

Didn't mean to come across as defensive Akos. I'm a big fan of the 600; I like the extra reach compared to the 500 with preserved f/4 maximum aperture. I hardly ever use my 500 anymore.

Hi Doug
Good catch.Look ,wing position and Bg are very nice.TFS

Asad

Thanks everyone for taking the time to comment!

Doug, really nice image. I actually like the full-frame composition better than the crop but I'm guessing I'll be in the minority. The full-frame would make a great large print in my opinion.

Cheers,
Greg

Fascinating shoot. I really love it. :cheers::cheers:

Gotta love this
TFS