Splendid Fairy Wren

[Don Railton]

Hi Guys

Getting a shot of this bird has been in my bucket list for the last 2 years. Have followed up a number of different leads (and many hours driving..) trying to locate them but without success. I was throwing out last years calendar which I quickly flicked through and it had an image of one of these birds and the general location where it was photographed.. which happened to be about 10 KM up the road..! so I headed off expecting to be disappointed again but "Whooo hoo..." 5 minutes into the walk around a local park and there it was... Went back again this morning and got the shot posted.

1D4 & 500 F4 + 1.4 TC sitting on a 5 series gitzo and Wimberley 2 head.
1/400 sec & F5.6, ISO 2000, manual mode.
cropped, 30% of the pixels remain from the original image.
Its been processed in ACR (CS6), mainly levels adjustment and shadows and highlights. I removed a couple of OOF branches, one under the tail and another under the belly.
Feel free to comment, tell me what you really think..!

Thanks for looking and happy new year..

DON

[Mike Milicia]

Wonderful to see ... nice pose and BG with excellent detail ... congrats!

[Daniel Cadieux]

Congrats on checking this species off your bucket list! It's a beauty for sure and I can clearly see why it was on that list to begin with. Good pose and BG, perfect head angle. Since you cropped so much away I'd contemplatre adding some back, especially at left and a bit at top...although the IQ held up nicely that would help with that.

Have a great 2014!

[Markus Hanika]

Nice clean BG and interesting bird.
I agree with the others - the head position
For my taste a little bit more depth of field to get the tail in focus would have given the final touch to the picture.
Or is it just motion blurr?
Anyway - i would be happy if could get shots like this

BR
Markus

[Jim Crosswell]

What a beautiful bird this is! I like the pose, HA, details and BG. Composition wise I would add some on our left and take some off the right. Well done Don.

[Don Railton]

Hi Guys.

Thank you all very much for the comments..! Just shows persistence pays off.... In my repost I have added the extra space suggested, but left the twigs on the LH border which the OP crop had eliminated. I could also remove these but they are natural habitat of this bird so I am a little torn on what to do here. Any thoughts? Maybe its too sterile with them removed?

Daniel, thank you and I hope you and all the BPN community have a great 2014..
Markus, I am pretty sure the apparent OOF of the tail feathers is due to movement of the tail by the bird. These birds are super active and that tail never stops...

DON

[Daniel Cadieux]

Don, in the repost I much prefer the size of the subject in the frame. The oof branches at left would be easy to eliminate if you chose to do so. especially the taller one.

[Don Railton]

Thanks Daniel... I think I will remove it...

[Shawn Zierman]

That is a gorgeous bird! The second posting is a vast improvement in regards to composition and visual space. I don't mind the branches on the left hand side one bit. I think because it comes right out of the urc and makes kind of an S shape with the branch that the bird is on, it has a nice flow to it. I think you only need to blend the clone job in front of the bird a bit more so the bokeh more evenly matches the completely smooth bokeh on the right hand side of the image, and you can call this one pretty darn awesome. Congrats!

[Jerry van Dijk]

Congrats with this image, Don. It is actually one of the best captures of this species I've seen, despite the OOF tail. I actually prefer the cleaner OP and would get rid of the OOF branch in the LL corner too.
I've encountered this species about three times during my visit to WA, but was never able to capture a decent image. They hardly ever seem to sit still. One of the best opportunties to photograph them was at the entrance to the treetop walk in the Valley of the Giants close to Denmark, WA. Lots of them around to look for food spilled by visitors and absolutely not shy. i could approach some of them to a distance of less tan 10m. Still quite a drive from Perth though. When I was there, the weather was so bad that there was hardly any light and on top of that, I had drained my battery and misplaced my second one...

[Holger Leyrer]

What for a wonderful bird. i see this bird first time. All is said but i will congratulate you for this shot.

[vishaljadhav]

Lovely image with superb IQ
the second post is where i like the size of the bird in the frame makes it very balanced
Great colour

[keith mitchell]

Don I do like the smaller image which I think shows more detail in this super looking bird,I always think the plumage on these birds looks almost artificial but you image certainly does it justice, excellent.

Don I found these and the White Winged on the coastal path close to Iluka on my last trip over to Australia.

Keith.

[Don Railton]

That is a gorgeous bird! The second posting is a vast improvement in regards to composition and visual space. I don't mind the branches on the left hand side one bit. I think because it comes right out of the urc and makes kind of an S shape with the branch that the bird is on, it has a nice flow to it. I think you only need to blend the clone job in front of the bird a bit more so the bokeh more evenly matches the completely smooth bokeh on the right hand side of the image, and you can call this one pretty darn awesome. Congrats!

Thanks very much for the comments Shawn... I admit the cloning on the repost was a bit rushed and its not as good as I would want..

[Don Railton]

Congrats with this image, Don. It is actually one of the best captures of this species I've seen, despite the OOF tail. I actually prefer the cleaner OP and would get rid of the OOF branch in the LL corner too.
I've encountered this species about three times during my visit to WA, but was never able to capture a decent image. They hardly ever seem to sit still. One of the best opportunties to photograph them was at the entrance to the treetop walk in the Valley of the Giants close to Denmark, WA. Lots of them around to look for food spilled by visitors and absolutely not shy. i could approach some of them to a distance of less tan 10m. Still quite a drive from Perth though. When I was there, the weather was so bad that there was hardly any light and on top of that, I had drained my battery and misplaced my second one...

Thanks for your comments too Jerry. I will try and remember this location in my next visit down south. Yes, you are right, these little birds are very busy chasing insects and darting about everywhere. They also spend a lot of time 'inside' the bushes for both protection and in search of insects which make a clean shot a rare opportunity. What a pity your opportunity to capture hit a brick wall.. and your drive is a lot longer than mine..

[Don Railton]

Don I do like the smaller image which I think shows more detail in this super looking bird,I always think the plumage on these birds looks almost artificial but you image certainly does it justice, excellent.

Don I found these and the White Winged on the coastal path close to Iluka on my last trip over to Australia.

Keith.

Hi Keith

Thanks for your comments as well. I have spent some time walking the costal paths just north of Iluka next to the Mindarie Marina after a tip of from a local photographer I associate with some times. Found plenty of female which are much less colourful but no males... This was taken a few Km's inland from there on the edge of Joonalup lake..

[Jerry van Dijk]

Hi Don, I just noticed in my images that we saw Variegated fairy wrens at the treetop walk, not Splendid fairy wren. Nice species to get as well!

[Don Railton]

Thanks Jerry, i'll keep that in mind.. At the time I captured this a Variegated was spotted just up the track by someone else...