Western Bluebird (baited)

[Dennis_Plank]

We put out a daily ration of mealworms for the Bluebirds when they’re feeding babies with the idea that if they need supplemental feeding in the winter, they’ll know to come to the dish. It paid off last winter when we had snow on the ground for a week which limited their normal sources of food.

I put a perch on the ground and laid down with the camera a dozen feet away. My wife set the mealworm bowl immediately in front of the perch and in seconds the male landed on it, paused a few seconds and went into the bowl. I don’t think it took him 30 seconds to empty the bowl and transfer the contents to the youngsters.

This guy’s plumage was thoroughly soaked from foraging in the wet grasses this morning.

What technical feedback would you like if any?

I underexposed this image and had to bring it up significantly in post processing. Does it still look reasonable?

What artistic feedback would you like if any?

Anything.

Any pertinent technical details:

7DII, Sigma 150-600 C @ 451 mm, hand held prone on the ground, f/8, 1/500, iso 2000, manual exposure. Processed in LR & PS CC. Cropped from the right and added canvas on the left, full height. Taken this morning at 7:16 am under very cloudy skies.

If you would like your image to be eligible for a feature on the NPN Instagram (@NaturePhotoNet), add the tag ‘ig’ and leave your Instagram username below.

You may only download this image to demonstrate post-processing techniques.

[David_Schoen]

A beautiful, well-balanced with respect color image with fine detail, pose, and excellent background. The bird just pops so well. I put out some dried mealworms just to see what would happen in my neighborhood and 90% of them are still there after a month.

[Dennis_Plank]

Yeah. I picked up a bag of dried ones last winter and nothing touched them. The Bluebirds just ignore dried ones, so we use live ones from the pet store in downtown Oly. I had a flycatcher eyeing them a year or two ago, but the Bluebirds were too fast for it.