Small Blue

[Kaustuv Chatterjee]

Small Blue Kingfisher scanning a stream in Sitavani, Ramnagar forest reserve.
Its sword like bill in such a small and compact body is a sight to behold.
Shot with the Nikon D90, Nikkor 70-300 mm VR at 220mm; ISO 400; 1/800s - F/6.3; -0.7EV

[Anand Madabhushi]

Excellent colors. The plumage is very good.

[Mrudul Godbole]

The beak does look like a sword here :-). The eye contact and the perch is nice. Was any sharpening done? Thanks for sharing.

[Roopak Gangadharan]

Nice colours. If the light supports a lower ISO wud also work for a bird which stay still as this one. You seem to have got it close.

TFS
Roopak

[Kaustuv Chatterjee]

Thanks. Yes have sharpened the image in CS, but was lucky with this to get it quite close. Spotted it at a distance of about 10 ft from the jeep while crossing a small stream in Sitavani, Ramnagar

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Nice colours and pose. The eye contact is good. How much of crop is this? There are some sharpening artifacts in the image.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Kaustuv Chatterjee]

This is cropped marginally just to remove some branches...perhaps about 20%