Boat-tailed Grackle (f)

Gallery: AvianPosted April 2, 201682 views7 comments

Ala Mark Seaver, this is from ten days spent with Mike Ramy on the St Johns river in north-central Florida. While I doubt that Mike considered the Grackles the highlight of his agenda, I found their behavior and adoption of the mats of invasive water hyacinth as foraging territory fascinating.

7D2, Sigma 150-600 C @ 600mm, f/7.1, 1/1000, iso 640, aperture priority, pattern metering. I don't recall whether this was hand-held or on a tripod as I kept switching around. Processed in LR5 & CS6. Cropped to 13.8 MP before resizing. I sharpened the bird and dragonfly and reduced brightness and saturation in the bg a trifle to make the bird stand out a bit more from the very busy background. This was shot from a dock, so there was little opportunity for a lower angle. Taken at 9:25 AM on March 23rd.

Comments and criticisms are always appreciated.

Thanks,

Comments

7 comments

Comment posted by Jim DeWitt on April 2, 2016 at 9:22 PM

Very nicely done, Dennis. The nicely sharp dragonfly really makes the shot.

Registered on August 28, 2006, 1240 Posts, 8506 Comments

Comment posted by Jim Zablotny on April 3, 2016 at 8:37 AM

Hi Dennis,

Thank you for the email. Nice action shot with the prey in the bill..............................Jim

Registered on January 17, 2004, 705 Posts, 3594 Comments

Comment posted by Richard Teller on April 3, 2016 at 10:28 AM

The light still looks nice for the time of day and the sharpness and detail are good. The dragonfly adds a lot of interest to the image.

Registered on August 23, 2010, 1162 Posts, 6692 Comments

Comment posted by David Schoen on April 3, 2016 at 2:17 PM

Very nice image with great sharpness and a bug in the mouth as a bonus. The poses perfect and the foreground and background illustrate this birds environment quite well. I look forward to more photos from your trip.

Registered on November 6, 2006, 1213 Posts, 4587 Comments

Comment posted by Floyd Hopper on April 3, 2016 at 6:27 PM

Great shot. I only wish you could tone down the "hotspots" on the bg leavves.

Registered on May 1, 2009, 652 Posts, 762 Comments

Comment posted by Mark Seaver on April 4, 2016 at 8:52 AM

I remember this, I was feeling a bit sympathetic for all of the Eastern Pondhawk dragonflies that this bird and a couple of her friends caught. A good catch of the morning feeding action.

Registered on January 23, 2011, 1103 Posts, 17270 Comments

Comment posted by Kurt Bowman on April 4, 2016 at 10:43 PM

A meal in the beak is always nice to see. I do ike environmental images, but it's a little unfortunate the bright spots in the leaves pull the eye a bit in this image.

Registered on June 19, 2008, 1005 Posts, 8028 Comments