Female Downy Woodpecker Best Viewed Large

Best viewed large, thanks for comments.

Very nice shot! Beautiful composition.

Very nice photo. Jitka

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www.jitkaunverdorben.estranky.cz

Beautiful! Ivana

Excellent capture! Great expression, sharp eye and fantastic blue background. Well done! Rgds Carole

Very nicely capture with great focus, DOF, and a nice background. Attached is a suggestion for an alternative crop since the green on the right makes my eye divert from the bird, or maybe it is the blue "hole".

Thanks Deiter, I like it.

Once again, the shot is just great,Beautifull Eyes !:O) DL

Good job Mary

Beautiful image

I love the composition, background and the mood u captured. Very well done. Congrats....

Exceptional shot, Mary Fran.Just beautiful. Great detail, colour and composition. I'd liked to have seen Deiter's rendition, but after ten minutes, it still hadn't drawn down to the birds head, and I gave up.I think our suggestions are different, in any event. I cropped from the left border, to reduce the mass of the tree, slightly, and decentalize the bird even more, giving her more apparent prominence, and flying room in the direction she is facing.

Thanks Doug, Deiter's is close to this, a little more off the right. This was one of my few shots with a clean background, and I'm not sure how I got the blue in that color, something to do with the light that day and perhaps having a polarizer on. I struggle the most with cropping for some reason.

I really can't figure out why Deiter doesn't like that soft mottled background. Just personal preferences, I guess. It would be easy enough to just clone over the grey or blue area, if you don't like it, rather than interfere with the space in which the birds gaze is fixed. I took it to be sky blue, showing through the out of focus foliage, and quite natural and complimentary to both the bird and tree. As always, purely subjective, and my personal preferences. It's what makes life interesting, Mary Fran.

Thanks Doug, I'm generally pleased when I have options, and appreciate all the opinions. Too often I don't have options and am locked in on a shot so these are gems to me. I posted this after comming in off a run of several that were pretty tightly cropped.