Off for more food

[Stu Bowie]

I visited a White Fronted Bee-Eater colony over the weekend. These guys are breeding in the side of a quarry bank, and you can see two of the nest holes on the LHS of the frame. The area must have been full of food/bugs, as every Bee Eater that perched before entering their nest hole had some form of bug in their beaks. A interesting fact is that they reverse out of their nests as they are quite narrow with obviously no space to turn around inside. They go in head first, feed their young, and then reverse out and fly away at high speed, as these guys are extremely fast flyers. There is absolutely no guarantee which way they will fly when they depart, so every capture leaving their nest is pot luck. Sometimes they fly up, sometimes down, and this was the only image out of plenty, that although flying slightly away, was nearly parallel to me. I unfortunately did not get all of the shadow, but cropping up from the bottom did not look right with less of a shadow. I cleaned up some of the white stuff. One of a few shoots that I took late afternoon.

Canon 1D Mark IV
Canon 200-400 with 1.4 engaged = 560mm
1/2000
F/7.1
ISO 640

Exp Comp +0.67
Hand held

[Bill Nuttall]

good environment shot Stu

Really reflects the "heat" of the time of day

BIF is perfect and the subdue colours really show the bird against the bg .. and the shadow(s) just adds to the composition ....... and the eye area is not over done

you could push the colours, (lighter) a little further on the bird, but I am not sure that I would

I'm envious ...... I like this image a lot

[Dumay de Boulle]

Lovely image mate and I really like the flight angle and wing position.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Stu - I agree these guys are fast. Really interesting about the narrow nests and having to back out. I like the bit of motion in the wings. HA is good. Colors look spot on and sharp where it matters. Nicely done.

TFS,
Rachel

[Geoff Newhouse]

Very nice image showing a bit of the habitat. I'm not a fan of the shadow but otherwise the bird has great detail, colours and its in flight so that is a plus.

TFS
Geoff

[Stu Bowie]

Thanks a stack for the feedback everyone.

[keith mitchell]

Stu I think the fact that you have the bg cliff helps show this bird off at it's best ,caught the wing action beautifully and nice colour and detail,like this one a lot.

Keith.

[William Dickson]

Great capture Stu. Love the flight pose with the downward wing position. Lovely colours on the bird and all fits well with the BG.

Will

[Satish Ranadive]

Excellent flight shot. Beautiful colors, and superb wing stretch and fanned tails feathers.
I like the shadow of him the wall too.

Regards,
Satish.

[David Salem]

Very nice Stu. What a great colorful bird to shoot and I really like the wing position you caught him in. Too bad he's facing slightly away but not a deal-breaker by any means. Great details and action in this one. Well done.