Green parakeets fighting

[miacat63]

I set myself a project yesterday with my new Canon 40D and using the 100 - 300 DO IS lens. Wanted to get good action shots so choose birds as they seems the most difficult subjects to capture well. These birds were quite high in a tree, so had the lens fully out and used action mode to get multiple shots. Lots were binned,,.but this and a few others came out quite nicely I think. I did crop this a bit but have not altered the colour saturation.
Thanks for your critiques in advance :-)

[clockdoc]

Nice work! Excellent color, tonality and sharpness. Did you use an off camera flash or is it the natural light creating the depth of shadows? Some may suggest a little more cropping of the mass of dark area on the left.

[miacat63]

Thanks for your comments. I did not use a flash, it was daytime and the birds were high up in a tree. There was a nest and the half dozen birds who use the tree, were continually fighting to get into it! They moved really quickly so getting a really clear focus shot quickly was pretty hard. They are a beautiful colour and nice birds to take pictures of.

Thanks for taking your time to ask questions :-)

[miacat63]

Thanks for your comments. I did not use a flash, it was daytime and the birds were high up in a tree. There was a nest and the half dozen birds who use the tree, were continually fighting to get into it! They moved really quickly so getting a really clear focus shot quickly was pretty hard. They are a beautiful colour and nice birds to take pictures of. Perhaps I should also remove the small twig in the picture too?

Thanks for taking your time to ask questions :-)

[Winning Post]

Yeah this is a really nice shot. I think a closer crop could help but there is a lot of scope for that... anywhere from cutting out some of the tree to a real close up of the birds, depending on the format taken in (ie. RAW?)

[pegasus]

So you have those little suckers over there in England too??? They seem to be like the fire ants and are spreading like crazy. They ARE beautiful but sure do mess with our electrictricy lines because of their huge nests around the transformers. Annnny way, I commend you on being able to capture them without the wing flutter! The tone and clarity are great.

[lefty82]

I love it - but I agree with the others about the cropping. The size and texture of the tree are distracting my eyes from those beautiful birds.