Male Orchard Oriole

[Jack Backs]

This is an image from a couple weekends ago. I was calling it quits for the day and leaving the the conservation area. As I was crossing a lake reservoir dam, I decided to stop and give it one more try for the day.
I had seen an Orchard Oriole in this area a few weeks earlier. Even though I've never had any success with audio for this species in the past I decide to give it a try and was stunned when a couple of males immediately
flew up. Unfortunately they were hopping branch to branch very quickly and didn't stay very long. I didn't have a chance to recompose after getting the head in focus so I clipped the back half of the tail. I got a couple
other images that I was able to use to clone in the remainder of the tail. I wouldn't normally go to this much trouble but I don't have a good male Orchard Oriole image with good isolation. I know the bird is on the
wrong side of the branch but it's narrow enough and interesting looking enough that it doesn't bother me. The tail was going out of focus. Straight size reduction.
Nikon D500, 500mmF4VRII, TC-14EII
f8, iso800, 1/1250s

[Colin Driscoll]

A good shot of the bird with nice complementary background. You did alright with the tail.