White-tailed Ptarmigan

[DanWalters]

Captured this Ptarmigan while hiking around Guanella Pass, Colorado. Love to catch them in between their summer and winter phase. Thanks for looking.

Canon 1D Mark2
300mm f/4 IS

f/5.6 1/1600sec
ISO 100
+1/3 comp

[Randy Stout]

Dan:

Striking bird, with whites well handled. I love the mix of plumage.
The light angle was well off to your left and reasonably harsh too, but you did well.

In a perfect world, with that light angle, more of a turn towards you would have helped. A lower shooting angle might have been nice as well, but I suspect it was not possible.

Cheers

Randy

[Paul Lagasi]

Dan.....I've only ever seen one, last summer...sharp, great colors, you can even see the grains in the snow..... to bad about light angle but these birds are beautiful no matter..good capture

[Harshad Barve]

what a beautiful species this is , first time for me
TFS

[Lorant Voros]

Impressing bird...I wish to see and photograph it myself.
Great work with the exposure. Light is less than ideal. Hope you have some more of this species....would love to see other images too.

[Lance Peters]

Cool bird - looks like a pigeon with raptor feet :)
as mentioned the Light angle is the issue - done the best you could I suspect under the circumstances :)
TFS

[ramesh anantharaman]

what a beautiful bird. love the snow feet

[Dave Barnes]

Wow the coloured feathers look almost like gold, very interesting bird.

[DanWalters]

Thanks for the comments! I went out earlier looking for them, but by the time I actually found them, the light was getting a little harsh.

[Bill Sharkey]

Beauty shot of a great subject Dan, love the color tones :)

Bill

[David Fletcher]

Very nice shot Dan. Not easy and lovely details. If available, due to the light angle, I wonder if the full shadow was available as there is potential for using it. Cheers.

[DanWalters]

Thanks David. Actually, he came over this mound of snow out of nowhere, so I had to react fairly quickly. They can move quick!

[Kiran Poonacha]

loved the expo here, nice pose and the angle too adds wells, congrats, would love to see a low angle image too, congrats...