Sundown Shrike
by Sharon Hallowell
Caught this tough little bird just after the sunset. I just love the attitude of these guys. The mate, who I saw first, was on some wires above this one. Although I don't like the barbed wire, I can accept it for this steely little bird!
50D, 500mm, Iso 320, 1/10 (thank goodness he was still!), F5
Full Frame.
LARGER VERSION also posted.
Comments
13 commentsExcellent details and colors. The bard wire doesn't bother me at all nor do the branches in the background. I think it helps tell the story of where you were.
A well done image Sharon.
Nice little shrike, good pose, cool BG and comp.
Sandy
Peter
Even though I'm assuming you were using a tripod, simply amazing that you were able to keep the lens steady enough at just 1/10 to acquire such excellent sharpness and detail in this lovely little character, well done :^)
My personal preference would be to see the subject much lower down in the frame, but I'm guessing the wire you speak of above was your reason for not doing so.
BTW, there appear to be two faint dust spots directly above the subject's head, more noticeable on the HR version ... unless they're actually on my monitor ...... nope, they're in your photo ;^)
I still like this image very much, the muted colours, the framing between twigs and the sideways glance of a very cute little bird :^)
Kind regards,
Ashley
Mauro
Keith.
Shrikes are fiesty little birds and i like them because of that. I like the pose, the head angle and the nice details. Dust spots have been mentioned. Since this is full frame I might consider cropping a bit off of the bottom to move the wire lower and out off the center of the frame horizontally and crop a little off of the left to balance the comp. The wire doesn't bother me since northern shrikes often use them to impale their prey.