Northern harrier is one of my favorite birds to photograph. This juvenile lives in a park near a residential area and is frequently seen flying around in the late afternoon. I got him (I think it’s a 1st-year male) in the right sun angle but with a bad background of cars parking on the curbside. But they are out of focus enough that clean up was not too difficult. As always, I would love to hear feedback and critiques from you guys.
D5, 500mm, f/5, 1/3200, ISO 5600
@adhikalie
I love this one. Certainly worth the cleaning up. I like the ton-sur-ton in the image, the colors of the bird that come back less saturated in the BG. Perfect focus, great detail in the bird, nice brighter spot above the bird from the oof sky.
Beautiful image.
Adhika, this one is as good as it gets. The lighting is wonderful providing some truly excellent detail from the spot on focusing…Gorgeous !.. 
That eye is compelling. Nice wing position and beautiful colors. I agree - worth the time to clean it up.
Lovely color combination. Nice job on the clean up with nothing showing. Focus is spot on and a nice pose. A really good job on this flight shot. And good for you to make max use from the camera features. A few years ago a shot like this would have been noisy or dicey or both. You bump the ISO and get ss you need. Excellent.
Thanks, @Han_Schutten, @Paul_Breitkreuz, @Terri_Barnett, @David_Leroy!
I agree. Starting from Nikon D500, nailing birds in flight seems to have become a lot easier. I am comparing this with my D750 and I can feel the difference. But now, every brand has caught up. This is a great time to get into wildlife photography.
Beautiful job, Adhika. The bird is at a great angle, tack sharp, and you had gorgeous light. a good job on handling the background as well. The color palette in the background is very reminiscent of where one would find these birds in a natural area and I’d never guess it was the suburbs, though these days perhaps nature photographers should start celebrating the nature we find in suburban and urban areas instead of trying to pretend it’s that mythical world unaffected by humankind,
Adhika, this is such a pleasing in flight image of this beautiful Harrier in gorgeous light. The background compliments him well, so if it was a problem with parked cars, I sure can’t see it. Great job.
Hi Adhika, love the light and the flight pose is awesome. Good job on the clean up. Very well done.
Thanks, @Dennis_Plank, @Shirley_Freeman, and @Allen_Sparks for the kind words.
I still want that clean environment, etc but I cannot agree more to this. I think we are (at least I am) so conditioned to those utopian images that it is hard to accept this situation but the fact is urban wildlife is what 99% of us get. I will even go to say that those animals in the national parks are somewhat conditioned to human presence. Truly wild creatures are almost impossible to get within the photographic shooting range.
I echo the positive comments above. Love the pose, color palette, and light. I really like the blurred wingtips. I personally think the bird could handle a bit more contrast, something along the lines of the below:
Beautiful capture Adhika. I totally agree that getting these types of shots are commonly gotten in urban settings. Almost all of my bird images are within 1/2 a miles of homes. Crazy. Great sharpness and detail and I too love the slightly blurred wing tips. Head angle is just right and the exposure is good. I like what @Lyle_Gruby did to make the bird pop. It really stands out from the background now.
Hi Adida
You did a great job cleaning up the back ground (no car that I could see). The Harrier is sharp and the morning sun really give pop to it’s coloring and detail.
Peter
Hello, Adhika, wonderful shot as presented. Color palette is matching the bird nicely and the pose and direction of flight are as good as it gets. I would not add contrast personally, for me it works well as posted. Cheers, Hans
Just a follow-on note, Adhika. I would not raise the contrast my more than a tiny amount. I like the original presentation.
@Lyle_Gruby, @David_Haynes, @Peter_Morrissey, @Hans_Overduin, @Dennis_Plank thank you guys for this feedback.
As for the contrast is probably a personal/subjective thing. I can see it either way but slightly prefer the lower contrast.
