A behavioral portrait. These nocturnal birds are ambush hunters sitting on posts or branches and watching/listening intently for movement and will capture anything that they can swallow. In contrast to true owls their feet are small and not used to capture prey, they just use their enormous mouth. They occupy the same foraging niche at night that the Kookaburra occupies during the day. Up to 0.5m head to tail.
50D, Canon 100mm macro IS, manual focus and metering, f5, 430EXII with diffuser.
A tiny eye turn would have been great bit I know one can't control these things!
Don't know the real color of the bird but it looks a little too bright and maybe could be toned down just a bit?
I might have cropped it just a little tighter on the right and had a bit more black canvas on the left with the birds head a tiny bit higher in the frame as it's looking downward.
Good image of a unique bird, Colin. The black BG works really well and it is nice to see the intense eye - the usual day time images always look so sleepy.:)
I love the detail in the eye. The focused expression of the bird is well captured/portrayed in your image.
Agree with above comment that a crop with more off the right side and a little more on the left side of the image would be nice to see.
Glad you posted.
Thanks for the BG on the bird. I am impressed that you got so close with a macro lens. I think you have a nice photo of this species. The eye is great and the cryptic feathers are sweet. You could tone down the flash effect a little, but that's personal taste.
Tawny Frogmouth
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