Wisconsin Immature Blad

Excellent job on the exposure against that high key bg, Jerry. As to cloning, I probably would have removed the twigs coming out of the bird's back and head, but that's a matter of taste. Excellent detail.

Agree with Dennis on the selective cloning. It's a beautiful bird! Sharon

Excellent pose and detail. I like the way the claws grab several of the twigs and pull them together to provide better support and stability. I had never seen that. If you are looking at selectively cloning out some twigs, as was suggested, the one in front of the bird and the short pokies (2 at the bottom center and 1 at the left pointing at the tail) might be other candidates to include. Just my thoughts though. Powerful image as is.

Great detail and the bird really stands out from the high key background.

Jerry, I really like this high key image and the puffed up pose of this youngster - beautiful detail and color. I do find the twigs growing out of the head and the back distracting, the rest add to the cool stark feeing of this image. Very nice capture, congratulations.

Very effective use of high key. I agree about cloning the twigs out of the bird's head.

Jerry,

I have to agree that cloning out the branches above the head and back would improve this image greatly, otherwise a great image

Very cool bird - I like the ruffled plumage. As far as the twigs go I kinda like the ones coming out of the head as they add some tension to the shot. I don't really like the one in the back though. As long as you're going to indulge in cloning, I'd think it would be fun to try cloning in some more twigs behind the back to complete the spider web effect and fill that void. Did I really just write that? It isn't even beer thirty yet. I'm only half-serious when I write that, but you can clone out the distractions and end up with a very nice albeit generic bird portrait, or you can leave it in it's environment as is (a nice documentary shot), or go artsy and add remove stuff as desired to achieve a certain mood you may have felt when shooting this or being around these birds. Or maybe just a square crop losing some off the top would help keep viewers focused on the plumage.

I decided to clone out the branches that most of you agreed were distracting. Thanks for all the feedback.