Swainson's Thrush

Gallery: AvianPosted June 2, 2018224 views6 comments

Like many woodland thrushes, this one doesn't come oout into the open all that often, so I was delighted to see this one when I was at the Nisqually Billy Frank Jr. National Wildlife Refuge a week or so ago. There's a section of the boardwalk with a grave road paralleling it (you can still walk the gravel). This bird was on the roadway, foraging in the cottonwood fluff and I kept having to move up the boardwalk to try to keep in front of it and get the frontal perspective I wanted. There is also a lot of vegetation between the boardwalk and road, so I had to look for breaks where I wasn't shooting through greenery (my favorite pose has a great big blob of OOF foreground greenery in front of the feet-I haven't worked on cleaning it up yet). I liked this frame for the complete covering of fluff on the ground.

7Dii, Sigma 150-600 C @ 600 mm, hand held, f/7.1, 1/1600, iso 2500, aperture priority, pattern metering, -2/3 EV. Processed in LR & PS CC. Full frame. Taken at 2:12 pm on May 24th under cloudy skies.

Your comments and critiques are appreciated.

Thanks,

Comments

6 comments

Comment posted by Nate Chappell on June 2, 2018 at 2:50 PM

The cottonwood fluff does make for an interesting background, nice to catch this guy out in the open Dennis. devil

Registered on February 1, 2006, 1158 Posts, 19528 Comments

Comment posted by David Schoen on June 3, 2018 at 1:50 PM

A good look at this Thrush out in the open. I also like the Cottonwood fluff as part of the environment. The area right under the eye is a tiny bit soft but not objectionably so. Looks like your focus point was just on the breast area.

Registered on November 6, 2006, 1213 Posts, 4587 Comments

Comment posted by Gary Minish on June 3, 2018 at 4:22 PM

Nice capture, Dennis. I think it was definitely worth all the effort. It looks almost like it's walking in snow until you view the large version. I'm very familiar with the cottonwood seeds as we have a lot of it here in Valdez.

Registered on February 4, 2006, 625 Posts, 3583 Comments

Comment posted by Debapratim Saha on June 4, 2018 at 10:15 AM

Nice surroundings of this lovely thrush with cotton wool habitat, a beautifully composed image Dennis.

Registered on February 4, 2018, 26 Posts, 101 Comments

Comment posted by S Govindarajan on June 4, 2018 at 2:42 PM

Nice habitat image of the thrush, Dennis. The colors are very complementary and I really like the soft light.

Registered on April 19, 2008, 115 Posts, 1921 Comments

Comment posted by Ed Williams on June 14, 2018 at 1:06 AM

Dennis I have taken several quick looks at this one, but didn't have time to think through a proper comment. The lighting is fantastic, well controlled with all of the light duff surrounding the thrush. Great job catching it out in the open and getting a very nice, detailed shot.

Registered on December 28, 2010, 636 Posts, 3499 Comments