Avian Image of the Week for the week ending Jan 10th, 2014: Sidharth Kodikal - American wigeon Drake flying

[Daniel Cadieux]

Congratulations Sid!

I spent a few days in Southern California over the Christmas break.
A couple days in the Huntington Beach area photographing water fowl and then an excellent day with Dave Salem shooting raptors (thanks Dave!)

This is a wigeon in early morning light from Bolsa Chica. As much as I liked the water color, I do wish the bird was more eye level.

Canon 1D4, 700mm
1/3200, f6.3, iso 500 (the light in SoCal is just awesome!)
Manual, HH

All comments appreciated.
Thanks.

[David Salem]

Liked it the first time I saw it! Well deserved IOTW Sid.

[Tobie Schalkwyk]

Congrat's and well done, well deserved!

[Jeff Loomis]

Fantastic image and well deserved accolades. The wing position is great and the detail is amazing. Bravo.

[prashant thakar]

congrats's great image.

[gail bisson]

Congrats Sid. A beautiful, well deserving image,
Gail

[Diane Miller]

Stunning! Congratulations!

[Sidharth Kodikal]

What a pleasant surprise. Thank you all!

[Jim Crosswell]

Congratulations Sidharth!

[Marina Scarr]

Congrats on a very pleasing image. THe water looks so cool.

[Terry Johnson]

Dan, a wonderful image.

I am trying to understand the wing reflection in the water. Is that from another bird? The water the subject bird is flying over is not perfectly flat and has some distortion, however, the wing reflection has no distortion and does not appear to match the wing pattern of either wing.

Just curious...Terry Johnson

[Sidharth Kodikal]

Terry, the reflection is from the bird you're seeing. The reflection does have some distortion (one of the reasons it does not appear to match)

[Diane Miller]

The way to spot a real reflection vs. a phony (flipped image) one is that the perspective is different, although it may be subtle. Here's why. At each point in a true reflection it will look as it would if your eye was at that exact point on the water's surface, i.e. you will be looking up slightly at the bird or scene instead of from the point where the camera was looking.