I believe this is a juvenile, though it took some searching on the internet to find a good sample. I finally found someone in California and it looked like she’d followed a family growing up. The plumage seemed to match nicely. We had cloud cover until after 2:00 today, so it made for some good late morning, early afternoon photography from the blind.
What technical feedback would you like if any?
Anything you note. There was a bright patch of background in what’s now the lower right (after flipping the image) that I cloned over.
What artistic feedback would you like if any?
I flipped this horizontally and I think it improved the image.
Pertinent technical details or techniques:
(If backgrounds have been removed, etc. please be honest with your techniques to help others learn)
7DII, Sigma 150-600 C @ 468 mm, tripod with ball head and Sidekick, f/8, 1/400, iso 2000, manual exposure. Processed in LR & PS CC. Cropped to 10.2 MP. Taken at 11:49 am today.
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Flipping this image horizontally was a really good call, Keith. I love pretty much everything about the image design: the bird, the perch, the BG. I do think that there is a little bit of magenta cast in the image though. Should be an easy fix.
I like the composition here. I think your color and detail are spot on. On my monitor I can’t really see any color cast. I haven’t seen a Red Breasted Nuthatch in my neighborhood for at least nine months which is very unusual. After years of being regular visitors they seem to have disappeared.
Very nice look at the young nuthatch. Your setup gives you a pleasing background. Good idea to flip this horizontally. I took this into PS to see what it looked like the other way and it made a big difference. Wonder why. Maybe because we’re used to reading left to right?
Have you tried Merlin Bird ID? I’ve found it at least 90% accurate in IDing birds and it agrees with this being a RB Nuthatch.
I haven’t tried Merlin since the early days when it was just starting to learn. I’ve heard it’s gotten pretty good. I was sure of the RBNH part of the ID, but I wasn’t sure of the juvie designation and my field guides didn’t have illustrations of that plumage.
