Secretary bird in full flight

[Stu Bowie]

These Secretary Birds are normally seen wandering across grasslands looking for their food of insects, mice, rabbits, snakes, and anything they will find. They use their powerful legs to kill their prey. So I was excited to have captured this fellow in flight. This was captured in my local nature reserve down the road from me. I was following him parallel to my car, and realised if I sped up a bit and turned the next corner, he would walk straight towards me. He didnt, he decided to take off for no reason, and this was the best flight pose from my burst of shots. I didnt care about the blue sky. Taken early morning.

Canon 1D Mark IV
Canon 100-400mm @ 400m
1/1600
F/8.0
ISO 640

Manual exposure
Hand held inside my car.

[Randy Stout]

Stu:

Indeed, nice flight pose. Full up wings, trailing feet, nice head angle towards us.

Yes, a few puffy clouds would have been nice, but well captured as is.

I don't know this bird well enough, but am curious about the whites. They are coming across rather gray on my monitor. I am on the road though, so may be just on my end.

Cheers

Randy

[Stu Bowie]

I don't know this bird well enough, but am curious about the whites. They are coming across rather gray on my monitor.

Thanks Randy. The plumage of this bird is grey, and if you are referring to the area of the underwing, it was untouched in post processing.

[Randy Stout]

Thanks Stu!

[Brian Sump]

Stu, really cool BIF shot here.

Would have loved to see more of the opposite wing, but the lighting is great on the exposed side so hard to nit that. Wondering if you raised the shadows on that wing at all? For some reason it just looks a tad off to me... maybe its the shade color compared to the black in the wings.

Anyhow, neat image overall!

[Jonathan Ashton]

Stu that's one of the best secretary bird images I have seen, as you say it is not common to get images in flight, the head is beautifully light and sharp as a pin - well done.

[David Roach]

Love those huge primaries reaching for the sky and the superb details (especially on the face). TFS

[William Dickson]

Well done Stu...Great details and flight pose...The light on the face is perfect.

Will

[Daniel Cadieux]

Gotta love that orange face! Pretty much perfect save for that unfortunate shadow on the far wing, but I can live with it.

[John Mack]

Dead on flight frame. Nice pose and the head turn is perfect, framing as well.

[arash_hazeghi]

sweet pose, HA and light. the shadow of the near wing on the far wing is there but not so obvious as to distract IMO. good job with this one

TFS

[Stu Bowie]

Thanks for the feedback everyone.