Salutations...

[Michel Pilon]

Hello,

Here is a picture I took 2 years ago and that I want to submit to your pertinent critics...

This Northern Flicker was showing me his underwings to my great pleasure at the Carbonneau Marsh (Sherbrooke, Quebec)... The moral here is when you see a bird cleaning itself, be ready for the picture!!!! It can come quite quickly... You can see here why we call him "Pic Flamboyant" in french :-)

Thanks for commenting...

Panasonic FZ20: ISO100; F4.6; 1/500s; hand held without flash







Michel Pilon
Quebec Canada

[David Hemmings]

Great pose and title. Wish for a little more light on the head.

[Arthur Morris]

Quite stunning, but for the lack of eye contact...

[Judy Lynn Malloch]

Great composition and timing. Love the beautiful wing spread and the only nit for me has already been mentioned. Thanks for sharing Pilonm.

[Maxis Gamez]

Lovely pose and light.... The frame is too dominant.

[Michel Pilon]

Hello all and thank you very much for your comments...

About the "eye contact": It was impossible to have an eye contact and the wing opened like this at the same time for the Northern Flicker opened it to clean it... He was then concentrated on its action... If I got an "eye contact" with him he had had no reason to open its wings like this :)

The frame is black like this to fit my website which has a black background... On myt website the black frame disappear then...That let me put my signature around the gray frame...

Press the Common Loon here to see what I mean...

http://parcours.pilonm.org/gaviidae.htm


Cheers :)

Michel

[Arthur Morris]

About the "eye contact": It was impossible to have an eye contact and the wing opened like this at the same time for the Northern Flicker opened it to clean it... He was then concentrated on its action... If I got an "eye contact" with him he had had no reason to open its wings like this :) Cheers :) Michel

Hi Michel, At the moment you made the image, more eye contact was obviously impossible. It might, however, been entirely possible that a moment before or a moment after, that the head was rotated away from you as the bird looked at his far underwing with the eye on the far side of its head. In that case, you would have had both the lovely raised wings and contact with the near-eye. Therefore, it was entirely possible and we just wanted you to be aware that you need to be on the lookout for such instants so as to be able to create a stronger image.

[Michel Pilon]

Thank you Arthur for the clarification...

I do agree with you then (now I understand what you were saying on your original reply)... :)

You can see the complete sequence here on my website (11 pictures took before the one I presented here):

http://parcours.pilonm.org/cgi-bin/a...lamboyant!8!18

Cheers from the north :)

Michel

[Arthur Morris]

Hi Michel, YAW. Thanks for the link. Great stuff!