secretary bird

[John Ippolito]

North of Satara camp, Kruger NP, South Africa
D200, 300 2.8 VR, ISO 200, f2.8, 1/640, beanbag

[denise ippolito]

John, I love the pose and the composition. Awesome crest! The color tones and the complimentary BG really make this special.

[Harshad Barve]

Amazing image , lovely compo and details , This is one bird which I want to shoot in Africa
TFS

[arash_hazeghi]

What a crazy bird!!! never seen anything like this. I think you can go tighter concentrating on a portrait. nice to see a full body shot too!

[Alfred Forns]

Just love these birds :) Like the crop particularly with the head placement !!! Big Congrats !!

[Kiran Poonacha]

Great looking portrait this, the hair style puts this over the top, well done..

[Stu Bowie]

Hi John, hope you had a good time in Kruger, with plenty sightings. Good eye contact here, and the crest shows up nicely against the OOF BG.

[Ken Watkins]

This is the Secretary Bird shot we all want, but is rarely seen, let alone captured.

I am deeply envious:)

[John Ippolito]

Thanks everyone for your comments and suggestions!

Stuart, Kruger sure is a fun place to shoot wth it's great variety of subjucts.

Ken, I think you are right in that I was lucky to find a secretary bird that gave me this momentary head on look. I always enjoy watching them stalk through the grasses.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Cool head-on look, good light and BG. There is a slight sharpening halo around the crest feathers and I would try to get more details in the blacks on the legs. I could also see this as a tighter portrait as the grass in front of the legs is a bit distracting.

[Steve Berkowitz]

That's a great head on pose - made me laugh!

[Vladimir Ivanov]

I like bird's haircut :) Very good portrait, John.

[sulasula]

PERFECT! PERFECT! PERFECT! :-)