Every May I take two days off work, one in the middle for wood warbler and one at the end of the month for pied flycatcher. On each day I travel about two hours from home to one off the ancient oakwoods on the west coast of Wales. It is one of my favourite places to visit and very atomspheric with old twisted oaks dripping with moss and lichens. I travelled over on Monday to look for wood warbler. These summer visitors really brings the woodland alive with their 'electric' accelarating song. I visit this site as they can be found low down in a particular area rather than in their usual area of the tree canopy. They are amazing birds that never stop and with a strange butterfly like flight will flutter between perches before repeatedly bursting into song.
On arriving none where to be found in the usual place :(. I headed off into the woodland and could hear one calling halfway up the hillside. The problem was it was moving around high in the trees. Fortunately the trees it was using were next to a low cliff so I climbed up which put me up level with the bird. Tricky lighting conditions with the midday sun coming through a windy tree canopy. Looking foward to the return visit for the pied flycatchers.
Taken with 50D and 500mm lens with 1.4TC on monopod at ISO400 F7.1 -0.67EV at 1/500s.
Awesome image Rich! Very dramatic lighting, and even the singing pose has a sense of drama to it. Maybe it's singing opera! About the only thing I'd do is tone down the bright spot in the LLC and also the bright area of the perch. Nice job!
After all you did the result couldn't have been better! Wonderful light, amazing BG, great detail and colors, stunning pose, and terrici comp. Big congratulations!
Great story to go with the image :-) I would see if you can bring back some of the darker areas on the perch without introducing too much noise. Super singing pose, and complementary BG.
Wood Warbler
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