Kiss me!

[John Goldman]

At first I thought that one bird was feeding the other to find out that there was no food exchanging. Are they greeting each other?
SS 1/400, f5.6, ISO 800, 600mm.
Cropped for composition, NIK Color Efex, NR.

[Michael Wayne]

Hi John!

Great interaction shot! It looks like they are going kiss as you say, but they are not on the same page, one is going for an open beak kiss and the other a closed beaked kiss, must be a first date. LOL

I would have cloned out the lower branch in the lower right hand corner and lightened the shadows on the perch underneath.

But I like your version of it.

Have a good one!

[Jeff Cashdollar]

John,

I tend to like pictures like this depicting day to day lives of birds. I find them interesting and the composition is unique - well done. The opportunities are as Michael mentioned the bottom right hand corner perch, catch light in the subjects eyes (visit Education & Tutorial Forum for a thread on this) - consider working the eyes on both - and a bit of fill flash might have been nice here as well. The steep angle is offset by the second birds position and the DoF looks good for f/5.6 - nice focus plane.

One more thing: consider taking a layer off the bottom and reducing the negative space. What was the body and lens?

[John Goldman]

Thanks for your comments. Here is a re-post.
Body, Canon 5D III; lens Canon 300mm 2.8 + 2X TC MkII.

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Wow,..night and day,..much better!!!

[Kerry Perkins]

Hi John, nice capture of the behavior - good comments and suggestions above! The repost looks much better; I would have left the eye of the bird on the left alone, it appears that you darkened it and I liked the reflection of the sky in it. Both of these birds look like juveniles to me, so the behavior might be the left bird begging for food from a sibling that doesn't have any to give but imitates the parents' behavior. Who knows, maybe John would have a thought...