Cedar Waxwing

[geoawelch]

Even a blind squirrel gets an acorn every now and again.

My wife and I went in search of an ultra-rare for our neck of the woods Vermilion Flycatcher. We did not find our quarry and got eaten alive by mosquitoes and deer flies in the process. On our way out of the trail, the Cedar Waxwing you see here was kind enough to land on a lovely perch in beautiful light and gave us a full range of poses.

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[Butlerkid]

Beautiful capture and pose! Nice exposure and composition. Consider perhaps a square crop, thus eliminating some of the OOF distraction at the top, and see how you like it.

 

[Charles Loy]

Fantastic! Happy for you, super snap. I love the Cedar Waxwing, odd name however

 

[NorthernFocus]

Nice consolation prize. Well done.

 

[dupcak]

Really nice capture. I'm hoping that we get some cedar waxwings in the next week or two when some berries start to ripen.

I agree with @Butlerkid - the top clump of OoF leaves are a bit distracting (the edges of the leaves) so if you could crop them out it would really be a winner for me. If you're not a big fan of the square crop and if you don't mind cloning out the leaf in the middle on the far right, you could crop from both edges... maybe.

 

[Viathelens]

Such beautiful birds, they don't even look real to me. Very nice shot.

 

[geoawelch]

Thanks very much everyone for the kind comments and suggestions.

When I get a chance to get back in front of the computer this weekend, I’ll give the square crop a try.

Cheers,

George

 

[geoawelch]

Done on the iPad. Better or worse?

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[Winston Churchill (Sir)]

what a beautiful bird - and well captured.
For me the branches are too distracting - so I would either have cropped the image or removed most of the background branches or do both - which would be first prize. I like the portrait crop for this one.

 

[geoawelch]

Elsa, thanks for the comment. I think I prefer the portrait crop as well. Cropping the leaves on the right leaves a Very tight crop on the bird. I’ll have to take a crack at cloning them out.

Cheers

George

 

[JP Onstwedder]

I like the wider crop, because the leaves to the right are less intrusive; in the tighter crop they call more attention to themselves. You could try a gentle blur on those leaves, which might help a little as well.

 

[tclune]

Lovely bird, well captured. I'm not bothered by the leaves, but the OOF branches have a "nervous" quality to them that I find distracting. Is that the lens or post-processing?