Blurred Aggression

[Andrew McLachlan]

A recent Black-capped Chickadee from backyard set-up. I have cut a small hole through the blind to utilize my SB400 for fill flash and was doing some tests with it and captured this little fella showing some aggression towards anothe chickadee that had just landed at the feeding station. I guess we will call this one a flash-blur.

A slight crop from the original.

Nikon D200
80-400 VR lens @ 400mm (effective 600)
ISO200
f5.6 @ 1/250 sec.
SB400

Look forward to comments.

[denise ippolito]

Love it! Wish it were mine. The perch and the BG add a lot to this. Very nicely done Andrew!!

[Jay Sheinfield]

Excellent...............real feeling of action.

[Indranil Sircar]

Excellent blur, Andrew. Love the action and bg. Great colors. TFS.

[Julie Kenward]

They are cute but they are aggressive little suckers! I see them fighting at my feeders all the time.

I really like this as well. If this were mine, I'd try cleaning up the blur inside the mouth a bit. I don't seem to mind it anywhere but there and that would give the viewer a strong focal point for his eye to land on since the perch is the only sharp object in the image.

[Kerry Perkins]

Andrew, I love the flash blur and the capture. Super background. The image has a strong magenta color cast, and it may be that you wanted it that way but here is a version with the color shifted a bit toward green. :cool:

[Andrew McLachlan]

Thanks to everyone for the comments. They are very much appreciated.

Kerry, thanks for noticing that and for re-post. I'll tweak my TIFF a little more toward green as you did.