The heron was so close I clipped the tip of his wing but I like it so much that I decided to use it anyway. I have other shots with his wing intact but the mouse wasn't as sharp. Not much done in post processing as it was basic editing but thankfully I was so close that the bird was in good focus and it was late afternoon so the colors were saturated.
I stopped up 1/3 F-stop, crossed my fingers and hoped my panning worked. For my taste, I like some motion blur in a bird as I feel it adds to the feeling of flight.
I was going to enter a red-tail but the sky was so boring and he wasn't doing anything interesting ... hope I didn't make a mistake.
This was the one I was going to enter
shot on the same day and edited using basic editing but it didn't tell a story like my entry so I went with the heron.
Thank you all for your votes and comments - so appreciated.
I love my little Bluebird of Happiness!
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For the record, I loved the colorful background - and how appropriate to carry the poor hopefully (or at least soon to be) dead mouse through a graveyard.
Ok, since I'm not voting in this challenge, and it's driving me up the wall, I'm awarding bluebirds to my 10 favorite shots. I'll post them in the posthumous awards thread after the challenge is over, but I just couldn't wait until then!
Ok. This one has to have a bluebird simply because of how bizarre it is!! Is that a rat?! And flying over a graveyard? What a find! Here's a bluebird:
An incredible composition.
The contrast of the bright background and the grey bird is great.
The vole (?) must be an unusual prey item.
Shame to lose a wing tip.
Wow, awesome capture. I didn't even know that herons ate anything other than fish.
The graveyard is pretty distracting, but its not like you could decide where he was going to fly with his prize. Hope this does well for you. 8
Great capture, but the cut off wing tip is bugging me, as is the distraction of the brightly colour flowers. I reckon you could have cropped the flowers. My son reckons you should have converted to B&W so that the flowers wouldn't be so much of a distraction. I think he's right. Good job all the same.
oh my god, i'm leaving for mexico in two days and have no time to vote or comment or do ANYTHING other than look through photos superfast this week, but i HAD to comment on this - oh my god, WHAT a catch! And the background! Wow. Great capture. Well done.
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