Black -Winged Stilt (View large)

Hi Robert, More than the bird I liked the composition. Great work and use of back light. 

Thanks,

Harsha.

Best regards Robert!

PDE

Very nice Robert!

The bird is cute as all young things are.  But the photo is fantastic. Very good composition - just enough foreground but with the body of the baby bird backgrounded against the neutral water.  What makes this really work is the back lighting.  Tentatively, apprehensively, stepping forward into the world.  A survivor or a statistic - only time will tell.

What an adorable subject!  And you captured it very well.  I love the back lighting.  Do you mind sharing how you controlled the reflection on the water?  It looks like silk draping more than shiny water.  Did you use filters, fixed in post?  Bravo!

Kristin 

Thanks for your comment. The picture was taken about an hour before sunset towards the sun but as  I was high enough to avoid strong reflection off the water in the background. No filters were used just a large lens hood to avoid lens flare.  The water is rather muddy which may also help reduce the shin. 

Wonderful shot, give me the 'Alone in the world' feeling :)

This is by far my favorite image of the day. Those knees made me laugh, I love the back light. Absolutly wonderful!

Wow!  Even more impressive that you did this in relatively low light using a 100-400.  Though I see you have a 5D MII which I believe handles the noise at higher ISO's a bit better than the 40D and other earlier APS-C bodies.  Do you mind sharing the EXIF data?

Kristin,

Light is still fairly bright late in the day here in the south of France.  Lens was at 400mm f 8. Iso 800 and 1/2000 sec.  Normally  i would have gone for lower iso and shutter speed but I had been trying to capture some other birds in flight when this fellow poped out of the reeds so no time to change settings! 

Very nice image against the light , good the details on the plumage, ciao Giangiorgio

I like photos!!