Boat-tailed Grackle

[Dorian Anderson]

My first decent frame of this Atlantic and Gulf Coast specialist! Nothing Earth shattering, just another species for my collection.

Closed down to f/8 to get the whole perch and most of bird in focus. Bird is probably a bit high in the frame, but I pushed him up
there to keep the entire leaf on the bottom right of the stalk.

Canon 600mm f/4 IS on EOS R5
1/1000 at f/8, ISO 1000
Processed in LR CC and Topaz - Cloned a few tiny white spots on the breast and face since they were distracting.

[arash_hazeghi]

nice one Dorian, you rendered the blacks nicely, my only nit picking is the caterpillar or snail damage on the leaves! from recent gardening experience I tend to notice eaten leaves by the pests more!

TFS

[Joseph Przybyla]

Hey Dorian, I like the bird but the perch not so much. The brown eye identifies where this bird is from, as you wrote the gulf coast, other places the eye is yellow. The processing of the blacks look good, nice pure background. Thank you for sharing.

[Kurt Bowman]

Nice head turn and I really like the calling pose! Blacks look nice and the perch is the perch. Nothing you can really do about it unless it's a setup. I don't mind it so much as the others.

[William Dickson]

I don't mind the perch.....it looks natural.....Exposure looks good on the bird...The BG is nice...Good pose and HA ...... the calling pose adds...

Will

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Dorian ... the image just does look great !!
Calling pose is cool and paired nicely with the composition , very nice to see a slightly mottled BG .
Processing looks good

TFS Andreas

[Volkan Akgul]

hi Dorian,

Naturel and beautiful.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Very nice indeed, I like the perch, I don't like manicured images. Colours and details excellent.