American Kestrel Seeking Shelter From The Wind
I found this Male American Kestrel perched about a foot off the ground at the base of a large tree as it tried to escape the effects of a howling wind. It was mostly in deep shade but because the wind kept moving all the overhead branches, dappled light would occasionally fall on the bird. I thought the lighting and setting made for a few interesting images. I’ve posted one other shot of this bird in a different pose in the past. 1/500, f/8, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in My intent this morning was to post a single image of this bird but looking at the unprocessed versions I couldn’t make up my mind which of these two shots to use. So I processed them both but still couldn’t make a choice so I’m posting each of them. They’re processed minimally. I sharpening the bird and part of the perch in each photo but made no further adjustments, including exposure, saturation or contrast. 1/640, f/7.1, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in I took this image only two clicks and seconds later than the previous shot but the slight change in body angle and head turn made subtle yet significant differences in light and richness of color. I adjusted my f/stop from 8 to 7.1 to give myself a little more shutter speed since I didn’t need quite as much depth of field to get the tail relatively sharp with it at this…