Vegetarian Kingbird?

[Jeff Dyck]

I was watching a pair of young Eastern Kingbirds catching insects from a farmer's fence in Oxdrift, Ontario when one of them did something I've never seen a Flycatcher do before - he went and picked a choke-cherry! The bird landed facing away from me and only held the fruit for a couple seconds before eating it - this is the only frame I got with his head turned. Unfortunately, I didn't observe the behaviour again...

Canon 5DmarkII -- 400L / f5.6 -- ISO400 -- f7.1 @ 1/500s

The image is pretty heavily cropped which has muddled the feather detail a bit, but I think it looks OK for web presentation. The location worked well - the fence was high on a hillside and the background seen is "as shot", right out of the camera. The scene was very contrasty with the back-lighting/side-lighting - I think the lighting works well for the translucent berry, but I am having difficulties recovering detail from the bird's right wing and having it look natural.

Regards,
Jeff

[Dave Blinder]

Nice capture Jeff, looks like detail help up pretty well for a heavy crop. I wish the bird's tail was angled down a bit more.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Good behaviour observed. I'm sure the tiny hook at the tip of the bill came in handy in holding this berry in place (it likely pierced the skin of the berry). Neat to see the light seeping through that berry. For me the head isn't turned enough, and the light angle is less than ideal. In this case I think a darker exposure overall may be beneficial (at least to the body) to set the mood.

...but I am having difficulties recovering detail from the bird's right wing and having it look natural.

The whites on the right wing look blown, or close to it (I don't have PS on this work PC right to verify the histogram))...if you photograph in RAW it would be worth revisiting it to see if those are recoverable. You could also pass the burn tool on the gray part of those feathers to tame the light there.