I've decided his name is Bomber, as in photobomber, because he loves to fly in and start fights with the chickadees posing on the stick perches. The local refuge where the Great Gray Owls were hanging out last winter realized they're making bank on the entrance fees from all the photographers, and this year they decided to set up an entire area, complete with feeders, stick perches, and an old picnic table with holes drilled into it for placing your own sticks if you don't like theirs, cordoned off exclusively for photographers! First time in a long time I've seen park management get something right. In general, the photography spot is mainly effective for feeder birds, but there are also occasional visitors such as American Tree Sparrows that will stop in to take a look.
I had the camera set up just a bit off light angle because of a brown blob that would have otherwise been right behind the chickadee perch. When the nuthatch landed on the tree, I didn't have time to re-adjust for sun angle, so I just machine-gunned and hoped for the best. It still needs noise reduction once I figure out Neat Image and how to use my new Wacom tablet. I don't know why, but I'm going over the allowed resolution if I do anything bigger than 900x600, so that's what I've uploaded.
7D mkII, 500mm f/4 IS
1/320 @ f/8, ISO 800
ACR/PS. Cropped a bit and cloned behind/over the eye for feather texture to fix a single blinking highlight.
For those of you in the area who want to know where the honey hole is and maybe investigate it yourself, it's the Marguerite d'Youville Wildlife Refuge in Châteauguay, QC. The rare bird alert is currently lighting up like a Christmas tree because of a red-headed woodpecker who seems to have decided to spend the winter. I can confirm he's there, but he's near impossible to photograph.
Perfect Nuthatch pose. The bird seems a little soft to me; either the focus was on the tree, or the low SS cost you some sharpness since these little birds don't hold still.
Thanks for the info on the park. Great to see photographers getting some help from park management. I wonder if the Great Greys will return this year.
Great image, i like the composition as it is, maybe just cut a bit from the empty space on the left. It most be so nice to have a park with an area like that design for photographers! great job by the park management there.
I like the pose and composition and BG here. I agreed with Bill re: sharpening but looks like its been handled. That's awesome to have this type of set up at a park. I'd love something like that locally. Good details in whites and blacks. TFS
Just a nuthatch
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