American Robin

I'm not sure which state has the worm, but Connecticut, Michigan & Wisconsin have the Robin, though we have plenty of them out here.  My wife and I thought Washington should be the Geoduck (pronounced "gooeyduck" but it's probably too obscure). 

This one was actually taken in Eastern Oregon just across the river from Idaho just under a year ago.  You can see how the fringes on the breast feathers dull the orange of the breast.  Many birds use the same technique to change to breeding plumage.  When the mating hormones start up, the tips of the breast feathers become brittle and wear off quickly leaving the brighter feathers underneath to show in all their glory.

7D2, 300mm f4 ISL + 1.4TC, hand held, f/7.1, 1/400, iso 800, aperture priority, center weighted average metering.  Processed in LR5 & CS6.  Cropped to 7.5 MP before resizing.  Taken February 11th, 2015 at 3:24 pm.  I would have liked to get lower, but in preparation for this trip I was checking air in the spare tire under the truck and somehow bruised a rib.  This was about 4 days later and I wasn't getting down and up any too well at the time.

Thanks,