Scissor-tailed Flycatcher

[Jason G. Harrison]

Here is another shot of the male STFC. This frame, from a sequence of about 25 images, was the only time I captured him on a low perch, i.e. not a branch or in flight. I quickly went wide open and fired off several bursts. I needed more DOF for the tail, but it flew back up into its nest tree before I could stop down some.

Taken with a D300, 600VR, f/4, ISO 400, 1/4000th ss, -.3EV, handheld



Hope you enjoyed.

Jason

[arash_hazeghi]

Nice composition, background and colors. I like the perch too. I might remove the oof strands in the LLH. It looks a bit soft on my screen.

[Raymond Barlow]

beautiful image Jason, these are very rare around here, so one day I will trek west for a visit.

[Harshad Barve]

fantastic shot with killer BG and expo
TFS

[Paul Randall]

I would'nt change a thing Jason. It is rather soft but this adds to the overall image.
The comp. is nice, guides the eye from corner to corner. I am sure a bird with a tail this long must be hard to evaluate the composition while trying to keep focus etc.

[Jason G. Harrison]

Thanks for all the comments thus far. This is a deeper crop than I would have liked, but I was shooting the 600 naked and really needed the 1.4tc on there for this shot. This species is very uncommon around here too, more of a western bird. Our fine state did have several nesting pairs though this year.