Female Evening Grosbeak

[Raymond Barlow]

Algonquin Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada
D200 / 200-400 VR
1/640s f/6.3 at 400.0mm iso200
hand held, no flash, slight crop

A one day venture 4 hours north turned out to be fun as I was able to find some nice light near the end of the winter on these cool looking birds. Thanks for looking!

edit

I took another crack at this one, lots of retouching, played with the colours a little, and I hope this looks better... it sure is a long way from the original file. I am still not happy with the bright right shoulder on the bird., I guess I could really get carried away and mess with it too some day.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Ray, I love how a loop forms on the branch right where the bird is perched. I would only tone down the thick bright OOF streak in front of its face, Otherwise very nice image!

[Steve Canuel]

Great perch and excellent image Ray. I agree with Daniel about the toning down and might also remove the reddish OOF twig from the right side.
Steve

[Doug Brown]

Beautiful job Raymond! Pretty bird with superb sharpness. Nice use of DOF. Complimentary BG colors. I agree with Steve about the two branches. But it's an excellent photo!

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Great light and details. I would only clone out the orange branch on the right.

[Markus Jais]

beautiful perch and light. I agree with the others about the orange branch on the right. I would also try do darken or blur the OOF pale branch to the left of the bird.

Markus

[Raymond Barlow]

thanks for the advice everyone.. I have a shot of the male on the excact same position., I will try to work with that one another day.