Flicker ala Dave Douglass

Image Critiques Avian Critiques
1

Interestingly, I had a flicker in our back yard a few days ago that was foraging for something in the ground (might have been ants or crane flies, I didn’t catch anything in its beak). As Dave mentioned in his post, they are usually very skittish, but this one was in range of one of the back porch doors, so I just cracked it enough to poke the lens out and laid down on the concrete to shoot (hard on the elbows). The coarse look of the head feathers is because it had been raining all day and the grass was wet.

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-20190922-_7D21534-Yardbirds-Edit1500×1200 981 KB

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Pertinent technical details or techniques:

7DII, sigma 150-600 C @ 600 mm, hand held prone on the porch, f/8, 1/500, iso 2000, manual exposure. Processed in LR & PS CC. Noise reduction with Neat Image. Cropped to 2996x2397 before resizing. Taken at 4:45 pm on September 22nd under cloudy skies…

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2

I like the pose and the detail is good. The background is nicely blurred letting the head stand out and the foreground grass blends in well with the Flicker’s colors.

3

Excellent capture of this shy species, Dennis. I really like the muddy beak, light and ground level view. You got a great head turn as well. I see a pair in my backyard, but they haven’t allowed me to come anywhere close to them.