The Bellbird (Korimako) is an endemic species described as being the cornerstone of the New Zealand dawn chorus with it's bell-like song - 'a series of loud, clear, liquid, ringing notes interspersed with grunts and wheezes'. It is a 'Honeyeater' and can be commonly sighted taking nectar from the generous flowers of the endemic New Zealand swamp flax ('harakeke' in Maori).
I was pleased to catch this male (slightly purplish head) feeding in the relative open in an area of flax on a dull afternoon with a few tiny raindrops.
The bird would move rapidly from stem to stem, reaching deep into each flower for a sip of nectar. I would have preferred to have more of the bird's tail in the open, but chose this image from the series as it showed a characteristic posture of the bird and the beautiful architectural shape of the stem and flowers.
Canon EOS 1DX; EF200-400mm at 400mm; hand-held
1/800 sec at f/4, ISO 1600
Converted in DPP4. PP in PS CC included adding some contrast and saturation to the flowers which were partly obscured by moving leaves; a touch of Curves and sharpening with Smart Sharpen in PS CC. Cropped to provide best view of bird and flower.
Thanks for the feedback. I understand your comment about upping the exposure, but having looked at this and other Bellbird images, I think that it is about right. The thing that threw me at first was especially the head - but the bird is a very drab olive colour and then on the male, the neck and head go to an even more drab, dull chocolate to purple. When I look at it's eye and bill, I think the exposure isn't as far of as I initially thought as did you.