Wood Ducks are usually one of the stars of any trip to Santee Lakes near San Diego CA, and this morning was no exception. Generally one of the problems you face at Santee, is too many ducks. Difficult to get one isolated for a photo. This male offered a little be different pose for me, the "over the shoulder" look. Shot with a Canon R5, 100-500 mm lens ((at 343mm), 1/1250 SS, ISO 2000, EC of 0. Handheld. Processed in PS with shadows on bird brought up significantly (I underexposed bird about 1 stop-a goof on my part), whites on bird's face brought down significantly (about 1 stop), cropped from L and bottom slightly.

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Good analogy!

Thanks. Appreciate that.

Thank you for looking and commenting. This bird is certainly an "eye catcher".

Truly. Thanks for looking.

Even for a tanager, this one is up there on the "beautiful" scale.

Thanks. They are not rare, but are found only locally in the coastal rainforest of Brazil.

Thank you. Yes, it is accurate. Like so many birds, the exact color of the feathers depends on the light angle. I do agree with you-referring to this as "green" is a stretch.

Thank you. Great bird, even with a "bird on a stick" shot.

I would always like to have everything when I snap an image-beautiful bird, great pose, action, beautiful background, beautiful perch. Unfortunately often that is not the case. This image shows a gorgeous (IMO) bird in an appealing pose. Perch, BG, action-not so much, as in none. Still, when I look at this image, a Green-headed Tanager, I am still happy with the rendering of this bird. This was taken in Brazil last year and this image will always remind me of the beautiful location it was taken at, Ninho da Cambacica Lodge.
Taken with a Canon R5, 600 mm f/4.0 lens off a tripod. SS 1/200, ISO 2500, f/4.0. Processed in PS with BG WB brought down and OOF branch cloned out in upper R corner.

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