John Chardine's post of this bird under it's local name encouraged me to look at my images of the same species. When we stepped ashore on New Island, our first landing on the trip, we encountered a large expanse of gorse which would be familiar to out UK members. While I was looking at the gorse this bird and a few others of the same species popped up. While we had been warned of the intense colors of the species, nothing can prepare you for seeing the bird in person. He was beautiful and with intense reds on the breast. He was doing his best to rid the gorse of ants! There was another male with less intense red and a female in the same vicinity but this was the most flamboyant of the bunch.
Having this as our first species, we knew the trip was going to be good! And we hadn't even seen a penguin yet!
Nikon D7000, 28-300 @ 300 mm, ISO 800, f 9.0, 1/160, +.67, hand held
desaturated the reds slightly, levels, sharpened, cropped
Hi Linda,
I like the perch and BG. I would move the bird a bit more to the right to make him less centered and give him more room on the left to look into. The bird is a bit soft and I am wondering why you chose such a small aperture which dictated a slow SS?
Gail
Sounds like you had a great trip! I too would be excited if this was the first species encountered I like the rural feeling to the image, and even if the post is cut flat I find it has enough colour and caracter. I found the subject a bit flat in your post...in selective colour I added a touch of black to both the blacks and the reds, then added 8 points of stuartion to the whole image. Cropping some off above makes the square comp work better (IMO). Hope you like, and please share more from your adventures!!
Gail: Yes, this was an exciting time!!! As we waited to get to shore on our first landing we could see the lovely gorse and I had prepared to get a nice macro shot of the yellow flowers. So, that's the reason for the f9. But as I approached the area, treading carefully to stay in the deep ruts in the peat, up crops this bird! I'm not a pro and I just wanted to get a shot of this incredible bird. It was later that I realized that I had such a small aperture. Keep in mind that there are very few fences in the area and I think this was one of the few fence posts near here. To have a bird on that post with all the moss and stuff on it was exciting. Perhaps the softness was due to my hands shaking!
Daniel -- I was trying to avoid the square crop and to keep the eye in the upper third of the image. I do like the squarish crop, though. Thanks for the repost.
Hi Linda- Your Long-tailed Meadowlark male is definitely brighter-coloured than mine posted earlier. I think mine must have been a younger bird. I like the pose and head angle, and the rustic, though person-made, fenceposts adds interest, as does the food item (can't see what it is, maybe a spider or two?).
I like what Daniel did with the repost. On my calibrated monitor the original looked a little washed out. Also like the new crop but would like to see a little more room to the left and maybe a little less to the right.
John: Your observations are interesting regarding the look on your monitor. For me there isn't much difference between the two posts other than the cropping. And I converted to sRGB and embedded the profile too.
There was a male in the area that looked very much like yours, probably a younger male. And there was a female as well. It was lots of fun watching them dive into the gorse and come up with a beak full of "stuff".
My apologies for calling it a Sharp-tailed rather than Long-Tailed. I have to check my notes better next time.
Sharp-tailed meadowlark
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I like the rural feeling to the image, and even if the post is cut flat I find it has enough colour and caracter. I found the subject a bit flat in your post...in selective colour I added a touch of black to both the blacks and the reds, then added 8 points of stuartion to the whole image. Cropping some off above makes the square comp work better (IMO). Hope you like, and please share more from your adventures!!
