The last breath

[Stu Bowie]

I visited my favourite location on sunday, the Pilanesberg National Park, and shared breakfast with this Pied Kingfisher. He didnt perch on the best of perches, and I couldnt have moved to eliminate the OOF perch on the right. Although a bit far, I still managed to capture the action. The KF had already pulverized the fish against the perch to soften it up before going down the hatch.

Canon 1D Mark IV
Canon 300mm F/2.8 +2X TC = 600mm
1/2500
F/5.6
ISO 800

Manual exposure.

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Awesome image Stu! I like the behavior and the fish with its open mouth. Nicely composed with good BG. I miss that place !!!
Sanjeev

[MiroslavMaric]

Hi Stuart! Like natural colors, light, details and eye contact. The fish is well placed too. As you mentioned the perch could be better. TFS.
Cheers,
Miro

[David Salem]

Great looking frame Stuart. The straight on position of the fish with the open mouth is priceless and I really like the green BG colors. Exposure and techs look awesome as always and I agree with you about the perch, but what the heck! You got the shot. Well done

[Gerald Kelberg]

The fish looks particularly unhappy, as I suppose it would! Nice details in the blacks & whites, contrasting well with that green background.
Er... about the 'shared breakfast' ... did you also get fish?

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Stu - The open mouth of the fish takes this to another level. Unfortunate about the perch but the bg and techs look perfect.

TFS,
Rachel

[Stu Bowie]

Er... about the 'shared breakfast' ... did you also get fish?

Thanks Gerald. Nope, the mean guy never offered me a piece - he swallowed it all.

Thanks everyone else for your feedback.

[keith mitchell]

Stuart fish with wide open mouth looks great, take your point about the perch but that's where the bird decided to sit and unless it's a set up we can't do a lot about it.You look to have got the exposure spot on with the blacks and whites and a nice tidy b/g, very good job well done.

Keith.

[BenBotha]

I agree with the comments. I feel the open mouth draws my eye away from OOF perch, thus no issue. Whites-well handled.

Ben.

[Tony Whitehead]

Good job, Stu. I was hoping to see something from your trip this weekend. Burning in the OOF part of the perch may be worth a try

[Jonathan Ashton]

Very nice shot indeed, I quite like the perch it makes a change from the ones that are usually expected. The fish really is the eye catching feature but the detail in the kingfisher is as usual excellent.

[William Dickson]

Brilliant Stuart. Just love the details on the bird and the BG fits great. The KF is looking so proud. Great work.

[Robert vanMierop]

I can appreciate this because Kingfishers hate me. This one has great colors. You did well even with 600 mm. As for the fish's expression, remember Mr. Bill on old Saturday Night Live???

[Sidharth Kodikal]

I'm really liking your bird placement and your use of negative space in this image, Stu. Light, exposure, details are top notch as always. BG can't get any better. The perch doesn't bother me one bit. It appears to be a comfy breakfast nook for him :) and you've minimized it's impact with your crop/bird placement.

[Binu John]

Superb shot, Stuart! Excellent pose, light, exposure and BG. That fish with it's mouth wide open takes this over the top. Well done as usual.