Winter Blue Jay.

[Daniel Cadieux]

From Algonquin Park. It was pretty cool to see both Blue Jays and Gray Jays perching in the same tree hoping for handouts. Perhaps one day one of each species will perch close enough for a double-jay picture! IN the meantime, here is a single blue one that I thought looked good in an evergreen setting.

Canon 7D + 500mm f/4 II, manual exposure, evaluative metering, 1/250s., f/4, ISO 800, natural light, handheld, small crop for comp, eye work including an added catchlight, removed a slight magenta cast by desaturating the magenta channel.

[Karl Egressy]

Beautiful image, Daniel, feels like he/she is relaxed. The OOF green in the background is a nice touch.

[annmpacheco]

Compositionally this is a beauty! Love the frost on the tip of the beak and the soft evergreens in the BG. Well done Dan, I look forward to the double jays!

[John Hackney]

Very lovely capture Dan. PP work is fantastic based on your description of what was done.

[Grace Scalzo]

The evergreens set this apart. Super details, right down the snow on this bill.

[D. Robert Franz]

Really nice capture here!

[Charlene Bacchioni]

Great contrasting colours Daniel, superb image.

[Jack Dean III]

I think this is absolutely splendid. Great work.

[Sidharth Kodikal]

Love the contrast with the evergreen and the snow. The oof green bg really adds a lot of depth.
Before reading your comments, I felt that the eye/catchlight looked a tad unnatural.
Nice job hand holding at this low shutter speed.

[gail bisson]

The OOF greenery really makes this image special.
Lovely!
Gail

[Glenn Conlan]

A winter calendar pic for sure! well done, color, branch, snow make this special

[arash_hazeghi]

very nice Dan, love the composition with the perch and the snow!