Finally got him - Belted Kingfisher - with repost

Great shot for the motif! Looks like a little motion blur on the head but impressive for the circumstances. Congrats!

Still a very nice capture!

Bruce,

I'd be happy with this one too. It's a very nice shot. I like the pose with the tilted head.

I always impressed with an image of a KF sitting still... love the head position Bruce.

A beautiful shot, Bruce!
The soft feel to it is pleasing ...
The grey bg looks familiar but didn't expect to come from TX ...

Congrats on a very nice photo but it's not a him! Its a female - males don't have the brown breast band.

Congrats, Bruce. I would feel just as clammy had I shot this bird. I think there is some lovely contrast in there that you would see if you set the black point to 20-20-20 in curves and clicked the darkest part of the image. Then you might select just the eye and do a levels adjustment with with white on that and nudge a tiny bit more of black in to balance. Less is more for this bird.

Juli Wilcox made the following suggestions:
I think there is some lovely contrast in there that you would see if you set the black point to 20-20-20 in curves and clicked the darkest part of the image. Then you might select just the eye and do a levels adjustment with with white on that and nudge a tiny bit more of black in to balance. Less is more for this bird.

Juli,
I tried the 20-20-20 black point as you suggested. The blues in the birds plumage came out just a tad too black. I then tried 25-25-25. I like it better - the blues are more like what they should be. I also tweaked the levels on the eye as you suggested. I think both of these things really improved the shot.
Thanks for the help!

Nice pose and congratulation for the capture! I would consider a tighter vertical.

Bruce,

Congrats on a successful photo of this difficult subject! Your repost looks much better to me. Also, the overcast lighting doesn't seem to have hurt you on this, in fact it probably helped you hold detail throughout the range.