Rainbow Bee-eaters and friends.

[DickyOZ]

I went for a walk down by the Caboolture river hoping to see Kingfishers. They were nowhere to be found but there were enough other birds to make up for it.
#1 The Caboolture river - or at least a feeder creek.

# 2 A male Rainbow Bee-eater.

#3 A handsome fellow.

#4 Shaking off the bits of a bee he didn't want to eat. (I got the light all wrong on this one)

#5 It's nice to sit on a log and soak up the winter sun.

#6 A shy Spoonbill.

#7 A bad tempered Ibis.

[Wavelength]

I see all except the first one; and they are all very well captured...

[Shadowman]

Nice series.

[bje07]

The best # 2 very sharp with the light in the eye

[rpcrowe]

Nice shots...

Regarding the bee eater in image #2, there are two things which may slightly improve that type of back-lit image:

1. Using some fill flash at about -2 stops

or

2. Opening the shadows a bit in post processing...



I used NIK Viveza and put a control point on the birds chest and then enlarged the circle to include the bird. With that done, I applied the following adjustments with the sliders: Shadow adjustment +50, Structure +30 and Contrast +10

Spot Metering, when shooting, (if you have that capability) might also help in lieu of fill flash or in combination with that flash...

[Rainforest]

A handsome fellow indeed, so sleek and colorful and sun kissed. Nicely done. ..that looks like an active turtle to me ;-)

[IzzieK]

There is no number 1 here but I can comment on the rest.
I like #2 and #3 -- #1 is very elegant looking and #3 is very sharp I can almost feel its feathers if I touch my screen
#5 -- I wonder what habit is that of turtles on logs? I have some on a log in a little lake too...like in tandem.
#6 -- a different kind of view.
#7 -- is a domestic shot. Stay away from fighting ones, no one wins.

[John 2]

The first one seems to have flown off Richard. Nice and interesting set but the third one is excellent. Might be worth losing the halo on the branch and a bit of selective noise reduction in the sky if you can.