I came up on this young Gray Jay on the road while on my walk today. He had a parent in the willows beside the road instructing him (or laughing at him. )
that's a neat series of shots. Too bad there's none of the parent instructing the juvenile. You should have recorded this in video mode the way Ron does.
Rob, this is a very cute series. The images are sharp and you've captured some wonderful behavior here. My foavorites are #1 and especially #3 - it rocks!
That said, if you are serious about the critique part of the C&C, I hope you won't take this the wrong way. My only thought is: It looks like you got down low to take these. Was there an opportunity to get down even lower, perhaps lying down on the ground to shoot him? Certainly not if it would have scared the little guy away, but if it were possible it might give your subject a much better background (which here is so close in brightness and color to the subject) and allow you to throw the bkg out of focus more and have the subject pop. This is what I find myself thinking as I go over many of my own images.
The images are all really nice as they are, and like I said, not being there this may not have even been possible, but it's what came to mind.
Thanks for the nice comments all.
Lil - Thanks, the older bird was fairly well hidden in the shadows and branches, none of the shots of it turned out well
Ed - thanks for the advice on the angle of the shots, truth be known I was walking our dog and wanted to keep her away from the jay. That being said I really agree with your comments about the BG of the road surface
Nello - Thanks the Jay was in the deep morning shadows on a gravel road, generally they are very bold characters that stand right out in the world.
Interesting set Rob, nice sharp subject. I guess I never really thought about them having to learn to eat live bugs, thought they just did it. Now do you have any of the parent teaching the little ones to beg from picnic tables as they known to do
Tim- Thanks for looking in. I don't think there is much of a learning process for either bugs or picnic treats, but I did enjoy his reaction to the beetles struggles.
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