American Kestrel Male preening at the San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary, Irvine, CA, taken with my (newly-acquired) excellent used copy of the Canon 500mm f/4 IS lens (plus the 1.4X extender).
The pictured Kestrel was very cooperative, moving among several low perches quite close to me before settling on the truncated tree shown in the photo. He spent a few minutes preening before flying off, allowing me to capture a series of nice images.
Canon 7D with the Canon 500mm f/4 IS lens and the Canon 1.4X Extender II.
Manual; f/8 at 1/1600sec; ISO 400. Tripod/Wimberley II.
This is outstanding! And how wonderful that the kestrel is on a natural perch and not the wires they so often frequent . Beautiful colors and great detail, and great capture of preening behavior. I am still in pursuit of a kestrel without wires.
You have experienced the true joy of a Canon 500/4 and shared that joy with us in a big way. Your image is about as good as it gets with a kestrel.....maybe on par with Jim Salywoda's but it's unfair to compare anybody to that boy! I'm like Nancy....still looking for a decent shot of this species. Great work.
What a killer image of a difficult bird to get on a clean, natural perch, and the first I've ever seen of a preening kestrel - double winner. Well done, John!
Hi John , excellent image, has it all, animated pose, beautiful colours, well controlled light, good plumage detail and great perch.Love that curved tail feather, well done.
Thanks, everyone, for the positive feedback. It was a treat to have this little guy land so close to me - and then ignore me as he went about his normal behavior.
I have a few more from this series which I will post at a later time.