Osprey dinner time (slight gore factor)

[Dean Ingwersen]

Hi all,

Finally managed to get close enough to an Osprey on my Western Australia trip recently, and I think this image does a good job of showing what's involved for the bird to get at the flesh to eat. Image captured at Cheyne's Beach, about an hour from Albany, WA.

I do wish the nictitating membrane (3rd eyelid) of the bird was open though...

Canon 20D, 500mm IS L and 1.4x TC, ISO 100, f/5.6, 1/500 sec, AV @ +1/3
PS CS2 - slight crop, sh-h, levels, curves, sat, usm.

Thanks for looking.
Cheers, Dean

[Rob Palmer]

A very nice capture but I would have preferred the open eye also and not all the flicked meat around.

[Maxis Gamez]

Incredible behavior. I would fix the eye and add a Little more sharpening.

[Dean Ingwersen]

Thanks for the comments guys...here is a version with an eye copied in and transformed from another image in the series, and with a little more sharpening. I should have done that straight up...let's call it laziness!!

Cheers, Dean
P.S. FWIW...I think it looks heaps better.

[Maxis Gamez]

Hi Dean,

Did you learn anything? A huge difference don't you think??

Thank you for sharing!

[Joanna Trescott]

Wow, I'm glad you found that one! Great shot.

[Lana Hays]

Dean
Wow......talk about action....terrific. The repost with the replaced eye is fantastic. With an image this nice, you really should always want to go the extra distance to make it shine. Well done.

[Tony Whitehead]

Nice image Dean. I agree that the patched one looks nicer but the original tells a story - the nictitating membrane is there to protect the eye from "all the flicked meat":D