Meadowlark Portrait
by Jim Hansen
Northern Sacramento Valley. I was photographing an egret when I was distracted by a California ground squirrel. I got a couple of shots of the squirrel when I was distracted (pleasantly so) by this western meadowlark. He was roughly 15 feet away and in good light, so my attention again shifted. They are normally quite nervous in my experience, so I started shooting, not paying much attention to my settings. I had forgotten that I had been experimenting with DX mode on my camera, so most of the shots cut off the birds legs. This one didn't, but the bird was centered and really tight within the frame. So I cropped this one to a portrait as I was really drawn to the diverse feather patterns of its upper body. Please let me know what you think. D800e, 300f4, 1.4tc, 1/1250, f10, ISO 640.
Comments
3 commentsDavid
You captured some nice details best seen in the large version. I'm not sure about the crop and would leave the composition as is, but you could try David's suggestion. Colors are nice and bright..............Jim