Long Tailed Widow Bird in Habitat

[Stu Bowie]

I try and get these guys in flight, and have come away with some decent shots of them in the past. Sometimes they are just plain stubborn and stay perched for ages, as in this case, so the next best thing was to wait for the tail to lift in the breeze. Taken early morning, in the nature reserve close to where I live a while back. I decided to keep this 'smaller' in the frame to show the habitat, and all the different lines of OOF grasses.

Canon 1D Mark IV
Canon 300mm F/2.8 +2X TC = 600mm
1/1600
F7.1
ISO 640

Manual exposure
Hand held from my car.

[Satish Ranadive]

Marvellous image of beautiful bird in habitat, Stuart Sir.
Very nice perch and looks superb in the beautiful lights. I like the diagonal dry grasses in the BG, pose with long tail and nice eye contact.
Superb composition. Always difficult to compose the bird with long tail.

Regards,
Satish.

[arash_hazeghi]

what a long tail, very nice Stu! I just wish those branches had not intersected with the bird

TFS

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Bloody geeeeez! This fellow's got some tail. I agree about the intersecting branches on the body, but still showing it in its habitat nicely.
A hard bird to photograph with these proportions Stu.

Thanks for posting mate.

[David Salem]

Every time you post one of these I can't help to think what they must look like in flight. Must be something to see. I like this habitat shot and I think the tail and eye show nicely. Well done and TFS

[Stu Bowie]

Thanks for the feedback everyone.

[keith mitchell]

Think you have done an excellent job with the composition of this one Stuart, the Bg gives it an almost arty feel,do like this.

Keith.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Stu - The comp really shows off those long tail feathers well. Agree about the branch but not much you could do about it. Well done!

TFS,
Rachel

[gail bisson]

I am OK with the branch.
I wonder if you have this same image but with the bird looking to our left? I think that would make for a stronger image and you could crop some off the RHS
making for an even stronger composition.
Still a really nice image Stu and would love this in my files.
Gail