
The Story Behind the Photo: White-Breasted Nuthatch Balancing Act
White-Breasted Nuthatch Balancing Act Photo Story
It was a bright, sunny morning in Cuyahoga Valley National Park, something we are not used to in Northeast Ohio in the winter. I was walking the the trail in CVNP from the IRA trailhead to the trail connector at Indigo Lake. I always like to stop and spend some time at the Beaver Marsh.
I was watching a group of 3 white-breasted nuthatches flying around the Beaver Marsh hoping they would land on a tree that was close enough for me to photograph them. The nuthatches were flying around in a group and it seemed like they were chasing each other. Just then, the three nuthatches landed on a dead tree fairly close to me. This one nuthatch climbed to the top of the dead tree and gave me a couple of great poses.
White-breasted Nuthatch Photo Details
Camera: Canon 5d Mark iii
Lens: Canon 500mm f/4 IS with 1.4x teleconverter
Focal Length: 700mm
ISO: 400
Aperture: f/7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/2000
Exposeure Compensation: +1/3
Lighting: Clear, Sunny winter morning. Sun was at my back front lighting the Nuthatch.
Bird Photo Post Processing
- Cropped the image using the Develop Module in Lightroom
- Used Topaz DeNoise and a Layer Mask in Photoshop CC to selectively remove the noise from the sky.
- Selectively sharpened the bird and tree trunk using the unsharp filter and a layer mask in Photoshop CC.
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