Black Kite head on!

[Bibhav Behera]

This was shot today at Morjim Beach. It had something in its talons. There were arnd 8-9 of them and they were fighting over it. This guy was on the ground when suddenly it took off towards me.

Canon EOS 1000D, 300mm f/4L IS USM + 1.4x Extender
SS 1/500
f/7.1
ISO 200

Full frame image.
Comments and Critiques welcome.

[Mrudul Godbole]

Lovely composition. The eye contact is nice. Its good it came flying towards you. Wish you had increased the ISO for a higher shutter speed. The catch is a bonus. Thanks for sharing.

[Praveen Siddannavar]

Wow! Great shot Bibhav, the eye contact is nice, wondering what is it holding
tfs

[Dr. Kalpamoi Kakati]

Nice action capture. Clawed catch looks nice.A higher shutter speed would have been great.Thanks for sharing.

Regards
Kalpa

[Satishchandra Ranadive]

Beautiful Shot...

[Tushar Dixit]

Top notch shot, Bibhav! Lovely angle, soothing blues and eye contact. Front flight shots look boring if the stare is not towards you. You've captured a perfect one! Wish the shutter speed was even faster to freeze the wing span neatly. But a great image nonetheless!!

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Lovely. I agree with Tushar that you got the positioning of the wings and stare just right. Wish you had a higher shutter speed to play with. How many shots could you fire?

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Bibhav Behera]

Thank you everyone for the observations.
Sabyasachi, given that I use a 1.5 FPS camera, I could fire off only 2 shots one just before lift off and this was the second frame.
I should have used a higher ISO here, but it was perched on the sand and I hadn't expected it to dash towards me when it got mobbed.

[Ruben Alexander]

great shot.. but wish the entire wing span was in focus.. probably a faster shutterspeed would ahve helped.

[Lakshminarayanan Nataraja]

Nice one Bhibav. Superb wing spread.