Female Pileated

[andrewhuxman]

Captured this bird last week, she has been very elusive but finally caught her.

40D-500MM
1/500th
F 5
ISO 400
Center Weighted, Tripod ,
430EX -Better Beamer.

[Aidan Briggs]

Nice pose and good use of flash. The white circles in the BG are distracting though, as is your copyright, which I would suggest making it smaller, and not arranged horizontally.

Hope to see this species someday.

[Ramon M. Casares]

Light is amazing as exposure, colores, detail and pose, I agree 100% with everything Aidan said above, the BG is not ideal but the signature was the thing that bothered my eyes the most.
Congratulations.

[Jim Fenton]

This soes not look mlike any female pileated I've ever seen?

I'm wondering if this isn't some type of leucistic effect?

[Randy Stout]

Andrew:

I agree with Jim. I have seen a fair number of pileateds, and this is not a standard color scheme. The red crown is right, but she should otherwise be as black as the male. Maybe John Chardine can chime in on this.

Techs have already been mentioned. The bird itself is nicely captured, but background lights need to be toned down. The merge with the trunk doesn't show her off to best advantage.

Having taken a few woodpecker images, I appreciate the battle with the background, and posing.

Keep working on it!

Look forward to other input on her coloration.

Randy

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the details, trunk and eye contact and wish there were no bright spots in the BG. The plumage looks very unusual.

[andrewhuxman]

Thank you all for the comments. It is a leucistic Pileated.

[Cindy Mead]

what an unusual plumage- I've never viewed a leucistic Pileated before, she's lovely. The blue eye is fascinating to me (the adults usually have yellow eyes). The bg light looks quite natural to me, as this is how I usually view them in dappled light on our wooded property. Congrats on capturing this beauty Andrew, very well done.