Hurricane Flamingo

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Arthur Morris

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Indian Lake Estates, FL
BPN-American-Flamingo-filter-feeding-_A1G9030-Fort-DeSoto-Park,-Pinellas-County,-FL-Enhanced-NR.jpg

American Flamingo bred in Florida as late as the 1890s but were extirpated soon after that as they were hunted for food and feathers. The are an American Birding Association Code 4 rarity. At the end of August, several dozen were carried to the US by winds from Hurricane Idalia. Most occurred in Florida but some made it farther north to the Carolinas, Kentucky, and even Wisconsin.

Four have been hanging out at Fort DeSoto Park in Pinellas County.

Created on Thursday 5 October 2023 at Fort DeSoto. Seated on wet mud, I used the Robus RC-5558 Vantage Series 3 Carbon Fiber Tripod/Levered-Clamp FlexShooter Pro-mounted Sony FE 400mm f/2.8 GM OSS lens with the Sony FE 2.0x Teleconverter, and The One, the Sony Alpha 1 Mirrorless Digital Camera). The exposure was determined via Zebra technology with ISO on the thumb dial. ISO 640: 1/2500 sec. at f/7.1 (stopped down 2/3 stop). When evaluated in RawDigger, the raw file exposure was determined to be dead-solid perfect. AWB at 8:53:38am on a clear morning. Tracking: Zone AF-C with Bird Face/Eye detection enabled performed perfectly even at 800mm.

A second bird was removed from the left frame-edge.

Don't be shy -- all comments are welcome and appreciated.

with love, artie

ps: see lots more DeSoto stuff on the blog at www.BIRDSASART-Blog.com
 
What a corker Artie, love the low angle and colour palette. Just the right amount of punch, cool detail, nicely framed. My only suggestion because I think it works, is to add a Graduate filter at the foot and drop the exposure so it leads the eye to the head.

TFS
Steve
 
I love the pose and your comp choice.
Likely an illusion, but I feel some CCW rotation is needed.
Other than the green horizontally cutting through the subject, I like everything about this frame.
I've always wanted to see and photograph flamingos; planning to get that checked off the wish list this winter.
TFS.
 
Last edited:
Really nice. Though a sucker for uniform backgrounds, I like the touch of green/reeds at right. You got the head at the perfect place; we can see the feeding behavior perfectly and we have really nice eye contact.
 
The long, slightly bent legs, and long, curved neck make this for me. A quirky tripod:t3. Vertical was the obvious way to go here. Excellent typical "Desoto" colours and feel, despite the rare visitor.
 

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