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Woodpecker Fruit Picker
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Woodpecker Fruit Picker

by Steve Balke

Gallery: AvianPosted February 26, 2010128 views10 comments
West Indian Woodpecker (Melanerpes superciliaris)

Fruit is listed as being part of the diet of this woodpecker in Cuba. This image sure demonstrates that. I would like to know how he managed to eat his prize but I looked down to change camera settings and he was on a tree busy at something else when next I spotted him.

The original unprocessed raw image was quite overexposed; also it’s a large crop; and, finally, it required much more compression than usual to obey file size constraints for posting. However, even seeing some loss in detail resulting from all this, I decided that you may enjoy seeing an image of this fellow in action. As I’ve mentioned in my two previous postings of this bird, he was quite active, brash and loud ….and very interesting to watch.

All comments welcome.

EOS 7D, EF 400mm f/5.6, 580 EX II: ISO 640, f/9.0, 1/640 s, image is a square crop: 2216 x 2216 pixels (=4.9 MP or 27% of the 18 MP of the 7D).

Comments

10 comments
Comment posted by István Molnár on February 26, 2010 at 7:58 PM
Cool shot.
István :toast:
Registered on January 7, 2010, 114 Posts, 704 Comments
Comment posted by Kurt Bowman on February 26, 2010 at 8:16 PM
Steve, the reds in this are awesome! Looks like it needs a bit of NR (more evident in the top of the shot) and a bit more sharpening. I think the softness I am seeing is more from motion blur.
Registered on June 19, 2008, 1005 Posts, 8028 Comments
Comment posted by Michael Lotito on February 27, 2010 at 4:17 AM
Nice shoot! The red fruit makes this shot special!
Registered on June 26, 2009, 181 Posts, 1558 Comments
Comment posted by Monica Siri on February 27, 2010 at 1:18 PM
Steve,
you got a great action shot. I really like the red fruit in the beak! :toast:
Registered on September 20, 2009, 132 Posts, 3764 Comments
Comment posted by Mia McPherson on February 27, 2010 at 2:28 PM
Steve,

Your own self critique is so well done I don't have any thing to add to that.

I wonder too how the bird could get the berry down, or maybe the bird just thought you would enjoy the red fruit to compliment its coloring?
Registered on June 25, 2007, 491 Posts, 12566 Comments
Comment posted by Jim DeWitt on February 27, 2010 at 3:08 PM
You've noted the nits already; I can't add much. You've done very well with what you had.
Registered on August 28, 2006, 1240 Posts, 8506 Comments
Comment posted by Sharon Hallowell on February 27, 2010 at 4:16 PM
You're right, not the best photo in the world, but I still really enjoyed viewing it! It's nice to know a bird's eye can be bigger than it's stomach, too! Sharon
Registered on November 1, 2003, 392 Posts, 4810 Comments
Comment posted by David Sparks on February 27, 2010 at 8:15 PM
Steve:
Interesting bird engaged in interesting behavior. The fruit and head of the bird are in much better focus than the body of the bird. At f/9, this seems more likely to be motion blur, rather than a DOF problem, but I'm not positive.
Registered on May 26, 2007, 290 Posts, 4270 Comments
Comment posted by Nate Chappell on February 28, 2010 at 1:30 AM
That's quite the piece of fruit and I like that it matches his crown color, cool shot Steve :toast:
Registered on February 1, 2006, 1158 Posts, 19528 Comments
Comment posted by Steve Balke on March 1, 2010 at 7:07 PM
I really enjoyed all of your comments. Thank you all.
Registered on June 18, 2009, 229 Posts, 2915 Comments