Buffalo Youngster with Oxpeckers

[Gabriela Plesea]

Dear Friends,

I promised I'd share more from my trip to Kruger Park last month...so here is one cute Buffalo youngster investigating a few Yellowbilled Oxpeckers... they were busy sand bathing and not concerned with him whatsoever. Really liked the quizzical look on his face...

Hope this brings a smile, enjoy your evening and have a great week-end

Nikon D5
Nikon 500mm F4
ISO 2000
+1/3 EV
F6.3
1/1250s

Processed in LR and PSCC, removed one OOF oxpecker near the subject. Comments and RP's welcome

Warmest regards,

[Jonathan Ashton]

A pleasing image Gabriela, you would be up against the odds to get any birds in focus but the calf is in good focus. Clean image and natural looking colours. Iy gets a big smile from me!

[Gabriela Plesea]

Good morning, Jon! Glad you started the day with a smile

This scene was captured after some rain. We were driving around slowly following a few fresh leopard tracks when we came upon this large herd of Buffalo crossing the road...had to stop and wait for the traffic We then noticed this little one, he looked a bit tired ( they must have walked a long distance) and lying down in the middle of the road. The oxpeckers were all over his ears and he kept shaking his head, slightly irritated. At some point he got up and shook his head vigorously. Instead of flying away some of the birds decided to drop on the ground and take a sand bath. Because they spend so much time 'grooming' the Buffalo, Oxpeckers know there's no threat coming from them. So when this little one approached to satisfy his curiosity as to what they were doing, they just carried on

[Andreas Liedmann]

hi Gabriela ... a fun and story telling image with interaction between species , very well captured .
Love those big ears and the facial expression of the calf .
Composing looks good as does the overall tones and details .
On a personal note i would color grade this slightly different as i feel there is reddish/magenta cast across the whole image , even the greenery does look that way for my eyes . Might be just me ... you were there .
Specially the calf would benefit from a different grading resulting in a better color separation .
For sure a matter of taste .

Enjoyed watching this and TFS
Andreas

[Steve Kaluski]

Love it Gabriela, super sharp and I like the colour palette. Interesting, this inquisitive approach of the young calf takes and the OP continue to sand bathe, not fussed. Think here a hint of Black would be good, as there doesn't seem to be a real black point, have a ponder?

Shame this wasn't shot with a Zoom, otherwise once you got this you could have pulled back and had more of the calf, so everything is smaller in frame, but easy to sy and you might not have achieved the original capture?

TFS
Steve

[Gabriela Plesea]

Thank you so much Andreas and Steve! Having another look at this image, taking into consideration your suggestions. Will share as soon as I am done

Steve, would have loved to have the full calf in the image, but there were so many adults around! I think they keep the youngsters in the middle, to protect them from predators.

[Gabriela Plesea]

Here's an RP. Number 6 I might go back to this but there's so much more in those folders...