I have been trying to capture a local colony of these White-winged Choughs for a while now and today was a good day. They had two fledglings and were busy feeding them on the ground. I had no problems getting to within 30 feet of these super little birds. About the size of an Aussie Magpie.
Love the red eyes. 70% of original. I think a little NR would be good here.
30D, 300/1.4x, ISO800, f/6.3, 1/200th, HH, 430EX at -1/3 with beamer
Hey Bro, good job with the exposure on the blacks, and well timed to capture the open beak. I like the detail in and around the beak too. If this were mine, I would try and remove the highlight in the eye. Cheers.
This bird looks quite appropriate for the quickly approaching Halloween. Very devilish. The open bill is way cool. The NR is a major improvement, nicely done on the repost. I am wih Stuart in suggesting some eye work.
Well done on getting close and having an image like this with the nice detail in the feathers. Repost is great; would love to see another one with the eye work....I am sure you can do it with your skills. Well done.
Removing the catchlight from the flash is no problem.
I guess to explain my position, and not really because I need to answer anyone about anything, but prompted by Dave Phillips' comment, which I am unsure whether or not was meant sarcastically.
The birds are resident of the private property that we have our horse agisted on. They are often very close to people and horses, so are used to human presence. Any bird that does not want to let people close will fly away. These guys would do the same and at times have done so in the past. Yesterday morning while my better half rode her horse in the arena and I stood about 15 meters from there, the entire colony of birds were busily feeding two fledged chicks right around me well within their normal comfort zones. Well within, means I could easily get half body images at 420mm (APS-C 672mm). So they were far from bothered. Some had red eyes and some didn't and what Simon Bennett pointed out is news to me.
However, when I later followed them around as they continued on feeding the fledglings they were never harassed nor chased around for a better angle. All images were captured with their well being in mind and many a time as an adult came to pass food to a fledgling, they would then open their bills and put on a display around the young bird with wings spread. Even when they were far away from me. This is that display showing and the drooping right wing is just visible as they were too close to me for a full frame to show the behavior. So all in all I believe they were not stressed by my presence. :) They could easily all have flown to another part of the property to feed, yet they chose to do so around me as I was sitting on the ground.
Nice one Akos - great job getting the 'red-eye' display. They often give it when they are feeing fledged young. I've watched and photographed groups at Hattah and they appear to give it when other adults get too close to the feeding young bird. They'll also go into the wing display as well.
Cool image Akos, The red eye and beak action send it over the top.
Have you seen how "gangs" of these try to lure rivals chicks away with food bribes to increase their own "gangs" numbers. Would love to catch that on film/card
I'm guessing what Simon is talking about is the rush of blood to the eye ring that occurs when these guys get excited (making it full and red).
Cool to hear that you get to hang out with horses too. That is how I got into birds. I started seeing all these cool birds of prey at my girlfriends horse paddock so while she went riding I would go out looking for more birds. That was 9 years ago and you'll be happy to hear that nothing has changed!!
Outta my way!
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