5/3/2010
Bearing Gifts
See me. I come with my plumage all asplender and carrying the down-payment on a nest!
Of course you see a lot of nesting behavior at the St Augustine Alligator Farm rookery. This Great Egert had landed on a branch above the nest and was displaying, as well as carrying substantial offering. That is a bit unusual. Generally the male comes right into the nest with material. Maybe he and his lady had had a tiff? Or maybe she was saying “Now where am I supposed to put that thing. I mean, look at the size of it!” Sorry. It is almost impossible not to anthropomorphize when dealing with nesting birds.
Canon SX20IS at 560mm equivalent. Oddly enough, though these images were taken seconds apart, the EXIF data varies widely from f5.7 @ 1/800 @ ISO 80, to f5.7 @ 1/1250 @ ISO 125 to f8 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 250. ?? Go figure. All were close enough to correct exposure to for very similar processing in Lightroom. The first two were cropped slightly for composition.
Recovery for the highlights, Fill Light for the shadows, Blackpoint to the right slightly, added Clarity, a tiny bit of Vibrance, and Sharpen landscape preset.
From St Augustine FL 2010.
Nice images but all the distractions in the background made it hard to focus on your subject. Have you considered cropping to remove some of the distractions?
I viewed the pictures from a different thought than Dallas. My feelings were the scene of the bird in action which would have required the background to give definition to the image. If your intention was to display the bird rather than what it was doing then I definitely agree there is to much sharpness to the background. Sometimes only the artist knows what is needed.
wow that is superb!!!
Stunning! I love the green right above its beak. Beautiful photos!