Curious Quail

A quail gives a quizzical backward glance from a branch near Neck Point. Canon EOS 7D EF 70-300 at 300mm f/5.6 1/400 ISO 640

I was walking out to Neck Point in Nanaimo when I heard a rustling in the thick undergrowth.  I stopped and stood still for a moment and suddenly some movement caught my eye on the branch above my head.  Normally if I am walking around with both a wide angle and telephoto lens I will have the telephoto on my camera.  I figure that if a beautiful picture requiring a wide angle presents itself if is most likely to be a landscape that is not going to move, however, if I see something that requires a telephoto, like some wildlife, it is most likely not going to wait around for me to change lenses so I had better be ready.  On this day, that thinking paid off.  The quail was up on the branch but moving around a fair bit so I got it in frame quickly and squeezed off a bunch of photos.  They were all fairly standard bird in a tree images and I was hoping for something that would express a little of the bird’s personality.  Suddenly it turned away from me as though it were going to jump from the branch and just before it did it looked back towards me.  I love the curve of it’s head, the curious eye contact and the pretentiously comical feather sprouting from the top of it’s head.  I wasn’t happy with in the image were how bright the branch was so I burned it in then reduced highlights in Aperture.  I also wish I had the Photoshop skills to remove the smaller branch that crosses the bird’s legs and the dark leaf in front of the large branch but overall I am pretty happy with the image.

-Russell Berg

Heron

A great blue heron grabs some lunch. Canon EOS 7D EF 70-300 at 300mm at f/5.6 1/2000 ISO 640

Flight

A Great Blue Heron takes to the skies near Newcastle Island. Canon EOS 7D EF 70-300mm at 100mm f/5 1/2000 ISO 100 -1ev

The heron stretches out its wings, slowly at first into that rushing of air and it lifts-leaps off the rock and into the air.  It’s neck drops into that familiar curve as it reaches for the skies and I am shown the perfect grace of an animal in its element.

I had spent most of an afternoon following a Great Blue Heron around Newcastle Island. And the bird finally took flight and headed off into the distance. The afternoon skies had darkened and the bird and the exposure that I needed to freeze the motion of the bird’s wings almost left the bird in silhouette.  I liked the way that the underside of the tips of the wings have gone almost to full black.  There is almost a sense of saying goodbye, of a sad parting in the muted colour cast and  content of the image.