But it's yellow... This is a mature female red crossbill that has a seed in its beak after using the skewed scissor like beak to clamp, push, and extract the seed from the conifer cone. Their pink tongue is also adapted with groves to slip in and husk the seed from its papery sheath. I have been visiting an area by the shore where there are pitch pine trees with a very heavy crop of pinecones and the small group of crossbills are feeding. It is a fairly rare occurrence when these nomadic birds frequent the area so i was over the moon to shoot them finally this week. Difficult to get a clean shot as the tree is plump with cones, branches and pine needles...
Canon R5
840mm
ISO 1600
6.3
1/3200
Last edited by annmpacheco; 02-26-2021 at 11:11 AM.
Love this behavioral image. The seed really adds to interest along with the pine cones. Suspect some will not like the "chaos", but you had best angle in for action and light and I love the details and the behavior. TFS
Nice behavior image. It is a bit busy, but you still managed to get the head without any intersecting branches. I agree the seed adds to the image. Nice work.
Hi Ann I like it a lot .
Lovely colors and tones , I am not at all distracted by the busy surrounding .... as this is their habitat .
Great to the cones and the seed in the beak .
Not sure where the focal point was , as the twig in front of the bird looks a bit sharper than the subject itself .
Lovely depiction of their signature feature and behavior. Unfortunately, the setting is too busy for me, and I agree the focal point has fallen somewhere away from the head (and off the whole bird for that matter). As Andreas points out, the branch cutting across the rear quarter of the bird is the sharpest part of the image.