Baby RWB

Gallery: AvianPosted June 23, 201164 views6 comments

This worried looking little bird showed up near my path this morning. Judging from the threatening show from a male red winged blackbird, this must be a young one that doesn't quite have the hang of flying. I only had one quick photo opportunity before it skipped from branch to branch deeper into the bush. I did not pursue it of course.

There are quite a few branches here. However, one in particular, running behind the bird's head, was particularly distracting. Removal by cloning was too difficult for me. So, I blurred it out using Bokeh 2. The "refine edge" function in CS5 couldn't quite deal with the bit of fuzz above the bird's beak. However, Remask 3 (Topaz Labs) seemed to work quite well.

All comments most welcome.

1D Mark IV, 400 mm f/5.6, 1.4x TC, hand held: ISO 1250, 1/1250 s, f/8, -1/3 EV, 11.5 MP (72% of the 16 MP full frame of this camera), NR, exposure adjustment, sharpening.

Comments

6 comments

Comment posted by Luke Ormand on June 23, 2011 at 8:24 PM

Cool image and some nice habitat that isn't too distracting. Looks funny without all the feathers on the face. PP looks good

Registered on February 4, 2009, 1093 Posts, 7035 Comments

Comment posted by Angela McCain on June 23, 2011 at 9:49 PM

Your finished product actually frames the most interesting part of the bird-that naked face-quite nicely.

Registered on April 19, 2009, 367 Posts, 3589 Comments

Comment posted by David Sparks on June 23, 2011 at 11:18 PM

Good work focusing through the branches. The unobscured parts of the bird are very sharp. Its a neat shot.

Registered on May 26, 2007, 290 Posts, 4270 Comments

Comment posted by Richard Ditch on June 24, 2011 at 8:16 PM

An interesting image.

I'm going to stick my neck out on this and suggest that it is not a Red-winged Blackbird, but a Brown-headed Cowbird instead. I've never seen either species at this age, but the shape of the bill suggest cowbird rather than blackbird to me. I know that young cowbirds show a lot of buff on the feather edges as shown in this shot I took back in June of 2007.

Registered on November 1, 2003, 1031 Posts, 12705 Comments

Comment posted by Ashley Vincent on June 25, 2011 at 7:22 AM

Totally amazed you were able to get a shot as detailed as this for all elements that were evidently in your way, terrific job Steve :^)

Registered on March 1, 2011, 154 Posts, 2083 Comments

Comment posted by Steve Balke on June 25, 2011 at 4:14 PM

Thank you all for your comments. I enjoyed reading them and was particularly glad to see that the branches don't offer a major distraction. Richard posed a very interesting question: is this a RWB or a cowbird? The RWB male was certainly raising a fuss. However, there were cowbirds around and they are known to parasitize RWB. So, it could be that the male RWB was mistaking a cowbird for his own species. I started searching around on the Internet for images. I found some RWB baby images that are similar to the posted image. However, who's to say that they are really RWB or cowbird babies!! There is a large difference in appearance over a short time frame of growth too. So, at this point, the answer is still "maybe?! (Quite a poser, Richard!)

Registered on June 18, 2009, 229 Posts, 2915 Comments