A Pair of Puffins Billing

[William Dickson]

Canon 1DX
f/4 500mm
f/9
1/1600
ISO 640

Whilst on the small island of Lunga on Scotlands west coast, I got close to the Puffins and captured lots of behaviour shots, as well as the 'classic' Puffin ones. Here we have a pair getting to know each other again, after 6 months at sea, this is called 'billing'. I captured this one on the same cliff top as the Razorbills image. Nearly full frame, and cropped slightly for comp. I wished I had the whole OOF bird, but it was clipped. I decided to leave it in as I liked how it was watching the other two. I captured over 100 images of this event, and this is the only one where I managed to get decent HA, with the wing display on both birds.

Will

[Isaac Grant]

Excellent image William. Birds look very nice and I love the out of focus one in the background. I wonder if you could make it a touch brighter by selecting the whites, feathering and then inversing the selection and raising the exposure a touch on the rest of the image.

[William Dickson]

thanks for that Isaac.

[gail bisson]

This is a wonderful image.
Great behavior shown. Colors are great and that wing spread 'to die for".
I am not loving the cut-off puffin in the BG. If he was "whole" I would keep him in the frame but as is, I would clone him out,
Gail

[Glenn Pure]

Wonderful behaviour and great image showing it Will. Processing looks very good on this one with lovely detail and form especially on the dark plumage on the left bird's back and wings. Light was strong but handled very well. I quite like the OOF bird looking on but understand the point about it being cut off. On balance, I'd keep it. I'm happy with both the original and repost - the difference is quite subtle to my eye.

[William Dickson]

Thanks for the comments

Will