Going Cuckoo!

[Richard Unsworth]

I went back to the meadows yesterday and waited for 3 hours....

Amazingly , once again I was to witness the rituals of the GSC's.
Here a juicy caterpillar is being passed. I was also to witness the male making a mistake.
Prior to offering the tasty meal, he tried to offer a dried leaf, which was swiftly rejected.
The light here is early evening but strong, which gave me difficulties. No way to repostion as I was trapped in a lane with fence on either side. The image is cropped to about 45 of original. CS 6 AND dpp being used to process, using layers (multiply and burn). NR by Topaz. Some small bits of wire etc cloned out of BG.
I have to say the caterpillar rocks lol. Nice HA too!
7D 100-400 F5.6 iso 400 1/400 HH Manual exposure.

[Jonathan Ashton]

I like the image very much but I have some slight reservation over the sharpness of the cuckoos, I am not too sure that the camera had fully focused on the birds (?)

[Richard Unsworth]

Hi Jon

Glad you like the image concept. Focus square was smack on males head. SS slow side for FL which cant of helped. That splodgy wing pattern, bit like some woodies, seem to always look fuzzy?
TBH I am pleased with the image as it depicts the courtship well. Hard one to process, for me at any rate, bearing in mind I am using a crap laptop lol. Thanks for posting, enjoy yours too!

[Erik Hedlin]

Fantastic capture! I agree with Jonathan, either the NR or blur added in post makes the bokeh look artificial. The birds are also beginning to show a painting-like quality. Despite that, you've had some fantastic luck in the past week! Keep hunting!

[Richard Unsworth]

Hi Erik

yes indeedlucky to be here and seeing these fascinating moments,
I am reposting having gone back to raw.

[Richard Unsworth]

and here reprocessed with white and black set on respective limits in DPP for comment ie just off resp warnings
needs more adjustments but shows why that lhs light is a real problem

[Ivan Ellison]

Super action to capture, have only seen juvs of these birds-oh and 1 dead one on a road-. Very harsh light to work with, imo you have done well with the processing. head angle on boh seems spot on almost as though they were posing for you. Keep an eye out for the magpies nests that they like to lay in, the juvs are very colourful compared to adults, you may get some crackers of them.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Rich I would lower the brightness and perhaps darken the darker plumage - you can also use curves in DPP but I suspect ACR may prove your salvation - a very tricky one - good luck!

[Jack Breakfast]

This is wonderful. I love it. I see the painterly quality creeping in, as pointed out by my countryman Erik. Richard I would go bonkers to see more from this series. This is very special.

[Marina Scarr]

Super behavior captured here. Love the way the male is dangling that bait in front of her. I would crop from the right to take the birds out of the middle. Birds look pretty soft to me. Pane 5 looks best so far.

[Richard Unsworth]

OK final pane
recropped from right.
tackled the light with ACR sliders, CS6, Adjust black

thanks for all suggestions

[Jonathan Ashton]

Final pane much better

[Richard Unsworth]

:-) thanks Jon