Swallow Tailed Bee-eater?

[Ken Watkins]

The colours look OK but unfortunately no distinct swallow tail. GB is a little to fussy for my taste.

Taken in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe, 28th June 2010, 12.09

EOS 1D MkIV

500mm F4 IS hand-held from vehicle.

F6.3, ISO 800, 1/1000, EV +0.33

[Stu Bowie]

Ken, you have exposed and brought out the colours very well. Good pose too. One species I still need to get.

[Arthur Morris]

Neat bird. What is GB?

[Ken Watkins]

Neat bird. What is GB?

Artie,

Seems I having a bad day, it is meant to be BG!

[Arthur Morris]

That's what I figgered. Nice bird and pose showing the tail well. Perfect head angle. The leaves behind the head are most problematic, the shredded branches unfortunate.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Good-looking specimen and look-back pose, a less cluttered setting would have put it over the top. The yellows underneath the beak are a bit overexposed.

[Scott Frye]

Background is a busy -- I would try to select the bird --- inverse -- desat yellows -- to take some color out of the background so the bg does not compete with the bird -- just to see if the actions fit the theory

[Gal Shon]

Agree with your self critique regarding the BG,
but this is one beautiful and colorful bird.

[Fabs Forns]

Beautiful bird. I think the whole thing could go a bit darker, with more density and blurring and adding a slightly darker vignette in the borders may help disguise the busy BG.

[Ken Watkins]

Thanks for all of the very useful comments. I have had another go and tried to incorporate the suggestions. Using quick mask, I have attempted to remove some of the colours from the BG and applied a soight blur.

Please let me know what you think. I have managed images of this bird before with better BG but from greater distance and with less IQ, but then that is the reason we carry on