Northern BobWhite

Beautiful Sandy. This shows great detail and color.

The population of quail has declined so much here in the south - it's really sad. We used to have 11 coveys on our property when I was younger (teens - 40 years ago). Now we have none, and the property hasn't been developed or anything in that time except for maybe 20 acres we planted in pines. I think coyotes have have been particularly hard on them - we had no coyotes when I was younger.

lovely shot some good colour and detail

I like the combination of colors and the low angle in this shot Sandy. To my eye the head doesn't look tack sharp, it looks like the bird was moving some and you had a pretty slow shutter speed due to using F18 which seems a strange choice of aperture here.

Sandy,

I should have photographed northern bobwhites more when I lived back east because I remember them from my childhood and they bring back such nice memories, your image did that too. I like the low angle, setting and the natural colors. The beak looks sharp enough to me so the softness I see in the head might be from the bird raising those feathers slightly. I'm wondering if you meant to type f8 instead of f/18 because at f18 I would expect to see more focused details in the background than I see here?

Sandy, I like the comp and low angle. Overall, the fine detail is not quite there. I too am curious why you chose f/18 for a single bird image when f/9 would have provided enough DOF and allowed a higher SS to stop any movement by the bird. I am wondering if at f/18 you had some diffraction coming into play here combined with slow SS from using such a small aperture. At f/18 there is a good chance that you passed the diffraction limit of your equipment which would cause a softening of the overall image. I found that with my set up f/9 is still tack sharp, but after that it starts to fall off due to diffraction of the light passing through the ever narrowing opening.

Yup, meant F8 -
Early morning and very low light - a slow SS even with F8

Sandy
Queen of Typos

Nice to see one and out in the open as well. The species was in decline when we lived in NJ, having been a common backyard bird in the early 80's and very uncommon by 1994.

I too am curious about the f/18 value. That's what shows in the EXIF in the larger version, not f/8.

It's a shame we don't see these guys like we once did in my area. Well done Sandy!

Nice low angle Sandy and dof is great too

Swell shot Sandy!

Lovely colours in this one Sandy, and I agree the low point of view makes the image all the more appealing :^)

Handsome bird with some great color and patterns in the feathers. I like the hint of branches in the BG.