Black-shouldered kite

Gallery: AvianPosted July 7, 201174 views7 comments

Hi there

This is my first post on a NPN gallery, though Ive been admiring peoples work for some time now.

This is a sub-adult Black-shouldered Kite (Elanus axillaris) shot near Ormiston Gorge in the West MacDonnell National Park, west of Alice Springs in Australia. Adult BSK's lose the brown colar with age.
The background is grey with an approaching afternoon storm.

Canon 7D, 400mm f5.6 @ f5.6, ISO500, handheld.

Comments

7 comments

Comment posted by Ron Dudley on July 7, 2011 at 8:38 PM

Welcome to NPN Peter. I like the contrasting light on the two wings and the sky color sets a nice mood. Image quality looks pretty good at this size (you might want to consider posting at the larger, optional 1200 pixel limit in the future for more effective critique). It does look like you have some light in the eye which would be more obvious in a larger version. Very nice first post.

Registered on March 30, 2007, 437 Posts, 10915 Comments

Comment posted by Brian Gatlin on July 7, 2011 at 8:56 PM

welcome to NPN, Peter! nice light and bg here, and the centered comp works for me with this pose. Like Ron says, a larger version often helps with providing a thorough critique. Looking forward to seeing more of your work.

Registered on March 21, 2009, 202 Posts, 4187 Comments

Comment posted by Angela McCain on July 7, 2011 at 10:44 PM

Welcome. Great idea to start with a kite-a beautiful and magnificent bird. Image seems quite good, but agree that a larger version would let us see the detail.

Registered on April 19, 2009, 367 Posts, 3589 Comments

Comment posted by Dennis Plank on July 7, 2011 at 11:56 PM

Excellent first post, Peter. Welcome. I like the dark gray sky as a bg for this image. The detail looks good at this image size and the exposure appears to be excellent. The composition works well with this angle of the Kite.
I look forward to seeing more of your work.

Registered on January 28, 2008, 1767 Posts, 23192 Comments

Comment posted by Jim Hackley on July 8, 2011 at 1:43 PM

Welcome to NPN and a good first post to get things started. I like the open wing pose and it looks like you had enough shutter speed to get some decent feather detail, way to go.

Registered on September 17, 2009, 302 Posts, 5535 Comments

Comment posted by Jeff Loomis on July 8, 2011 at 11:35 PM

Wonderful first post. I like the pose - both wings and eye contact - and the amount of detail looks good. I look forward to seeing more.

Registered on January 26, 2010, 68 Posts, 719 Comments

Comment posted by Peter McDonald on July 10, 2011 at 7:31 PM

Thanks very much for the comments. I'll post at the larger size from now.

Registered on October 28, 2010, 12 Posts, 13 Comments