by Jim Hansen
This bird had a nest in the eaves of an old nearby building, and I watched it take in nesting material a number of times. It also hunted and caught a bunch of bugs. The light was quite limited though so when it came from behind the clouds a bit this morning I was able to get a series of shots with the bird on this perch. The background is dry, sparse shrubs and small trees. D800e, 300f4, 1.4tc, 1/1000, IS0 640, tripod. C & C are appreciated.
Comments
7 commentsThat's REALLY good.
Love the earth tones and the background is superb. Nice work.
Great pose, Jim and I like the perch and bg. Did you lighten this up? I don't remember them looking so brown when I saw them a couple of months ago.
Thanks for the comments folks. Dennis, I didn't lighten it up. I see a lot of this species and have found that it depends entirely on the light whether they look black or different shades of gray or brown. It really surprises me sometimes. This was mid morning and the light was pretty good, but filtered a bit by some thin clouds. This is pretty much what the bird looked like when I snapped the shutter.
Great shot, Jim! I love the complimentary colors of the background and the excellent details on the bird. Very good exposure control also.
Jim: I went back and looked at the Black Phoebe images I took in Arizona and I have to retract my statement on exposure. This looks just exactly like what I had in terms of color. Don't know why I remembered them as being darker.
Dennis, thanks for your latest comment. Your first statement got me thinking and questioning this myself. I too looked at some old images I have ( a couple in this gallery), and one shows a brownish color while the other looks grayish black. The darker one was taken in more subdued light while the browner one was in direct sunlight. I think that's what makes the difference, though maybe there is a natural variation as well.