The escape

[Nikhil Patwardhan]

A breeding plumage European Starling collects what appears as nesting material from a moss covered wooden stump along the Hudson River at Jersey City. The starlings were constantly collecting bits here, sometimes competing with House Sparrows, bullying really, and then flying back into a bushy area across the waterfront that's off limits to pedestrians, so I'm guessing they have a nest there (and also the sparrows). A mosquito (?) in the frame was nice to see on the monitor at home, it seems to have escaped in time I just "switched" to Canon (still kept Nikon but it's manual focus) with a Canon 400mm f/5.6 and 7D . Handheld in very cloudy conditions. ISO 1600 f/5.6 1/800.

[Nikhil Patwardhan]

I'm very new to PhotoShop Elements, have only been using Lightroom thus far. The Save For Web was deleting all the EXIF so I've used Save As instead and embedded the color profile which can make the colors very black nearly B/W :-S

[arash_hazeghi]

Nice bird and the perch + the moss, the main issue here is bird's head that is angled away from us and thus there is no eye contact.

TFS

[Marina Scarr]

Feather details and colors in the bird look great. It's nice seeing the feet so clearly. I too wish for eye contact.

[Nikhil Patwardhan]

Many thanks Arash and Marina