Striated pardalote

[Glenn Pure]

My favourite bird subjects are small birds, even though they present many challenges due to their shyness and speed. This is one such small bird not much bigger than a typical hummingbird (which we don't have over here). Even though this bird is some way up a tree, I managed a near eye-level shot by standing on a large earth bank not far from the tree. This bird and its partner were investigating a possible nest site in the earth bank on which I was standing (they sometimes excavate and build nests in earth tunnels although usually prefer tree hollows). Their cousins, the spotted pardalotes, prefer earth tunnels for nesting. Full sun at the time but bird in dappled light. I especially liked the bird's pose in this one although it may not be considered 'perfect'. Crop is about 30% of the frame area. I have darkened the background and cloned out an oof twig in the bottom left.

Technical: Canon 80D with EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM at 400mm handheld. Manual exposure 1/640 sec, f6.3, ISO 800. Processed in Canon DPP 4 (digital lens optimiser @ 50, sharpness = 3, crop, lighting adjustments, reduced NR from Canon default values) then exported 16 bit TIFF to Photoshop Elements with Neat Image NR plugin. Modest NR applied to bird and stronger to background. Sharpened in PSE (Sharpness tool, remove Gaussian Blur: usually 0.3 to 0.4 pixels at 50-60%) after final size reduction.

[Tim Foltz]

Glenn, Really nice picture, excellent details, catch light and BG, almost looks like an exotic baby chicken.
Do they have short tails or is it just the angle, great colors on this bird also.

-Tim

[Daniel Cadieux]

You did well to get eye-level with this little beauty. The perch is nice, the BG has a few highlights that I would tame if mine. I do wish the tail end of the subject was more parallel to the sensor. Nice light and colours!

[Joseph Przybyla]

Beautiful little bird, lovely colors, interesting perch and complimentary background all work together for a nice image. The images I looked at online of the four species of Paralote resemble out warblers. Thank you for sharing, Glenn.

[Bill Dix]

A beautiful shot of this cutie. Head is nice and sharp, and well exposed. Only wish for the tail.

[William Dickson]

Well done Glenn, great looking frame. Love the detail on the bird and that facial expression adds so much. Very nice POV.

Will

[Glenn Pure]

Thank you all for your critiques and suggestions. Tim, the tails are quite short on these (even shorter on spotted pardalotes - it's been suggested that it helps them escape avian predators as it's one less thing they can grab). As for the pose, I noted it was a little unorthodox and welcome your suggestions on this... but I still like this pose. Maybe I've seen too many birds on sticks in perfect poses not that they are bad but sometimes not as interesting?

Hopefully I'll get around to posting one with the tail in and a more side-on shot. I have a few images of this species.