This is the female Pygmy Falcon. The size you see on the photo is just about the actual size of the adult bird (about 19cm). They are found in the arid areas of South Africa where they hang around the large colonial nests of social weavers and prey on them.
Canon 1000D with Tamron 70-300 Di Tele-Macro @ 209mm
f8.0 @ ISO 400 @ 1/640
All comments and suggestions welcome!
PS: Kobus you'll see I've reworked from scratch and gotten rid of the halos - what you see on this photo is minimal processing done.
Nice light. Very sharp, and I like the ruffled feathers. The angle is a bit steep though, and I might desaturate the sky some, as it is too blue. I have never heard of that camera before. Is it new?
Oh, and Aiden - if you want to see sky that REALLY looks like that you'll have to come to South Africa :) I did nothing to the sky, didn't even saturate this photo - all colours are natural.
I like the early in the day look with the ruffled feathers. The perch and bird's right leg look a little hot. Steep angle mentioned and the OOF twig in the foreground is a little distracting. Posting in Abobe RGB will affect the colours when viewed in a non colour managed browser. African skies are great but how it is rendered will depend on the camera/raw conversion software - each profile in ACR will render a different version and and it is hard to label any more natural than another. Looking forward to more of your African birds, Morkel.
Good feather detail on the chest Morkel, and love the light in this, especially on the eye. I would tone down the perch, and the sky looks fine to me. I need more raptors.
Perched Pygmy Falcon
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