black-capped Chickadee cleaning house

[Bill Dix]

I was stalking an uncooperative Ovenbird in Sapsucker Woods a few weeks ago when my wife called to say she saw a chickadee disappearing into an old birch stump. As we watched, the bird repeatedly flew into the nest cavity, and emerged 5 or 10 seconds later with a bill filled with wood pulp. It was easy enough to guess approximately when he would emerge, but when he did it was like he was shot out of a gun. It took almost a dozen tries before I got him in this position. Had I anticipated the downstroke wing position I would have liked to have more space at the bottom; but after this frame he decided to take a well-deserved rest and sat in the top of a nearby tree. Light was limited, so high ISO compromised the image a bit.

D7000, 500f4 + 1.4, ISO 3200, 1/2000s @ f/6.3 manual, fill flash @ +2.0, tripod and mongoose.

[Andrew Merwin]

Incredible photo Bill. I have repeatedly failed to get an image like this. Congratulations on a superlative capture. I would be totally unconcerned about having more space at the bottom. TFS.

[dankearl]

Wow. Bill, this is excellent, getting these small fast birds in flight with food and a head turn.
The IQ looks fine to me at 3200.
Very nice job.

[Marina Scarr]

What a killer capture. Love the down stroke of the wing, the food, the inclusion of the tree and the terrific BG. It all came together very nicely!!!

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Bill, I know exactly what you went through here with no warning when the little guy was going to emerge. You nailed the wing position, and good to see the beak full of wood pulp. I would maybe take a bit off the top.

[Bill Dix]

Thanks all. Stuart, here's more of a pano crop, that puts the eye close to the ROT, and perhaps helps to mitigate the lack of space beneath.

(PS, I just noticed a horizontal white line just above the bird in both this and the OP - almost like a scratch on film - that doesn't appear in my jpeg or tiff files on my computer. Some kind of jpeg artifact that occurred on upload, I guess.)

[arash_hazeghi]

Hi Bill, nice dynamic pose and good wing position. The IQ is not great however. It seems that there was motion blur in the head and you had to sharpen too much in post. It's a very tough shot and you still did well

[Vivaldo Damilano]

I like this Bill, good timing on your part and love the wing postion.

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

Love the wing spread with great detail . I too like the tree and the nesting material is a bonus.

[Melissa Groo]

What a great capture,Bill. Awesome wing position and behavior. Great work!

[jack williamson]

Way to go Bill, this is so hard to do. It is not tack sharp but it is pretty darned good.

Jack

[rajojomanik]

It's hard enough to get these guy to stand still but to get them inflight is something else.

You need timing and skills to pull it off and you got it Bill.

[Mitch Carucci]

Nice catch. Not an easy one either!

[Bill Dix]

Thank you all for the comments. Arash, I think you're right about the oversharpening. Part of the problem may have been focus; since I couldn't acquire focus in the split-second after the bird emerged, I pre-focused on the tree near the hole. The bird was a bit softer than the tree, and I suspect I oversharpened him in an attempt to compensate. ISO 3200 didn't help the IQ either.