Katmai Bird #2: Roe Hunter

[Arthur Morris]

The Mew Gulls were the most common bird that we saw on the Bear Boat IPT. There were in the creeks picking up one salmon egg at a time, most dislodged from the salmon as they were eaten by the bears. This is a juvenile.

Canon 400mm f/4 IS DO lens handheld with the EOS-1D MIII. ISO 640. Evaluative metering +1 stop: 1/1000 sec. at f/4 (set manually).


Don't be shy; all comments welcome.

[Randy Stout]

Artie:

Soft light,well exposed, great wing position.

I like the way he is working the diagonal line. Would personally like a tiny bit more room on the left for the wing, and his head rotated our way just a bit.

Appreciate the back story.

Randy

[Rod Wiley]

Nice exposure, I like the look in its eye.

[Keith Bauer]

Bird exposure looks very nice. the water felt a little bright to me. I wanted a bit more room behind the gull. Adding a bit more behind caused an awkward composition. I added some canvas to the left using conventional means, and added canvas on the right with Content Aware Scaling. Darkened the water, and tried to bring out a little more detail in the eye. Hope that's OK.

[Chris Kotze]

Nice soft colours and excellent exposure. I like the repost comp.

[Adrian David]

Excellent exposure, and a nice dynamic composition! You can feel the action in this photo.

[Nicki Gwynn Jones]

Hi Artie!
I too like the repost but might shave the tiniest of tads from the bottom. Love the focused look in the bird's eye!
Best regards,
Nicki

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks Keith for the excellent repost. Content Aware Scaling: one good reason to get CS-4.... And thanks to the rest for your comments. The funny thing about these gulls is that no matter the wind or whether they were flying upstream or downstream, they seemed to always be facing slightly away from us.

[Dave Brown]

Hi,

This might be just me and I am viewing this image on my laptop,but the birds eye looks unnaturally pale to me,appearing to be almost bluish.While I have very limited experience with Mew Gulls, I'm very familiar with the other members of the complex, i.e. Ring-billed and Common Gull. Even juv Ring-bills have very dark eyes.Otherwise for me this is a very pleasing image,I particularly like the pose and detail in the underwing.

Dave Brown

[Connie Mier]

Content aware scale, I learn something new every time I view this website!:)
I do like the repost better, beautiful action seen here.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the landing pose, soft light and am glad you posted an image of this species since I'm not familiar with it. Do you also have some of an adult bird?

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Artie, I like the comp, and flying posure of the gull. Lovely light and detail, and would go for an inbetween of the two posts. Your OP is perfect for the colours on the gull, and I like Keith's version of the water in the repost. Somehow I see Keith's colour of the gull with a slight blue cast.

[Arthur Morris]

I like the landing pose, soft light and am glad you posted an image of this species since I'm not familiar with it. Do you also have some of an adult bird?

I will post an adult bird probably tonight.

[Arthur Morris]

Hi,

This might be just me and I am viewing this image on my laptop,but the birds eye looks unnaturally pale to me,appearing to be almost bluish.While I have very limited experience with Mew Gulls, I'm very familiar with the other members of the complex, i.e. Ring-billed and Common Gull. Even juv Ring-bills have very dark eyes.Otherwise for me this is a very pleasing image,I particularly like the pose and detail in the underwing.

Dave Brown

Howdy. You many very well be correct. I did lighten the iris a bit but strive not to overdo it. I may have failed here. In the JPEGs posted here, the iris does appear only a tiny bit brighter than the pupil; that tells me that you have excellent vision. In the optimized TIFF, the iris does look too light.

[Dave Brown]

Hey Artie,

Only a Larophile like myself would notice such things. I spend hours upon hours scrutinizing the minutae of gull plumages. Anyone who has ever considered coming to St.John's Newfoundland to photograph our winter Iceland,Glacous, Black-heaed Gulls, etc should do so soon. There is a major clean up initiative underway and soon our sewer outflow and landfill will be no more and our amazing winter gull flocks will be a thing of the past.

Dave Brown

[Matthew Studebaker]

Prefect pose and wondeful shot of an often overlooked species in the bird world. I love Kieth's canvas addition to give more space on the left hand side. Can't wait to see shots of the adults. The bit of white water "cresting" on the left is a wonderful little supportive element in the composition.

[Harshad Barve]

this is fantastic shot Guruji , loved the pose , BG and details
TFS

[Ramon M. Casares]

Better repost, nice pose, exppsuire, detail and species Artie! a bit more room to the left makes a big difference :) Congratulaitons!