This male Eastern Bluebird leaves his nesting box to search for more insects to feed his young nestlings.

Canon 7D with a 500L f4 lens with 1.4 II Extender, handheld at 1/800, f5.6, ISO 640, +2 exposure compensation. Taken late in the afternoon.

Here, because of my handheld shakiness, the bulk of the image was high to the right. Therefore, the tail was close to the edge, as was the top of the wings. I don't often do this, but I did reconstruct a bit of background to give more space for the top of the wings. I did this by extending the canvas and clonning in the extended portion. Formatted to my usual 12 x 16 frame.

I clonned out a thin splinter of wood from the nesting box behind the bird's claws.

Background despeckled after sharpening to reduce noise. I also gave a quick blur brush pass to the background to reduce it further.

Thanks to Henri-Paul and Francine for the access to their home and property.

Cheers,

Mike