Preening Bonaparte's Gull.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Rather quiet at a local beach last weekend. The water level had risen, pushing the shorebirds to other areas. One lone bird was present at first, a gull, but a good one as the Bonaparte's is rather uncommon here...a pretty regular Fall migrant but not in huge numbers and not for a long period of time. It was soon joined by numerous Ring-billed Gulls but not before I had spent some quality time with it as the sun rose over the trees behind me.

Canon 7D + 500mm f/4 II + 1.4TC, manual exposure, evaluative metering, 1/1250s., f/8, ISO 800, natural light, handheld, small CW rotation and then cropped the corners away, a couple of spots in the water removed (patch and clone tools), catchlight actually reduced in size as I found it too large and awkwardly shaped.

[Miguel Palaviccini]

Daniel,

A great preening pose captured. Such gorgeous light and wonderfully exposed (I know i would have over-exposed this one myself). Not sure what the catchlight looked like before, but I like the "hint" of it here.

I might take just a smidge off the bottom to remove that double reflection.

Miguel

[Randy Stout]

Daniel:

Lovely light, exposure and sharpness. Nice to be able to see the eye since they are often closed while preening.

Like the layered bg.

I am OK with the double reflection as it is so subdued here. If more vibrant, then I think it might distract more.

Good shooting angle.

I suspect there were some dirty clothes after this one!

Cheers

Randy

[David Salem]

Nice looking preening pose in some beautiful morning light Daniel. Exposed well and lots of nice feather detail in this one. Your usual nice low POV and a smooth Bg make for a good looking frame.. Well done.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Beautiful lighting and colours, the detail is equally impressive, a really strong image.

[gail bisson]

This is really beautiful Daniel.
I love the layered blue BG and the light on the bird.
Gail

[Grace Scalzo]

Wonderful, quiet image. I love the angle of the light.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Dan, sweet light, which in turn has rendered warm colours on the gull. Excellent feather detail, and the placement works well. I do like how the colours of the gull compliment the blues of the water.

[Raymond Lee]

Great capture as always! Love the soft lighting, colour, angle, and the preening action. Excellent details.

[shane shacaluga]

Great capture of this gull

Like the low angle of the shot and the FG and BG contrast over the bird

Lovely light and good details on the feather

TFS

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Rather intimate image and with lovely warm light. I like how the dark BG makes the bird to stand out.

[Nick Palmieri]

Nice low angle, love the light and refection. Like the the open eye.

[Satish Ranadive]

Excellent image in beautiful lights,Daniel Sir. I like the way bird pops up against the nice BG and low shooting angle.
Love the preening pose,great details on feathers and gradually decreasing in size whites tail feathers spots and angle of light.

Regards,
Satish.

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

I like the mood, I like the pose, I like the image.