Keep Trying!
October 2006
When you think you’ve got the shot, keep trying.
This handsome pair of Crested Pigeons was visiting the feeder where we were staying near Ravenshoe in the southern Atherton Tableland. Several times, when displaced from the feeder by other birds, they would perch together and preen each other. This is called allopreening, and is a pair maintenance behavior that is performed by birds as varied as certain ducks, crows, and parrots, and well as pigeons and doves.
For a couple of hours one afternoon I tried to capture this behavior. And several times I thought I’d got the perfect shot only to find that one bird’s eye was half open, the bird had moved just as I released the shutter, or there was some other problem with the image.
Fortunately I’m rarely able to give up on a situation when the going seems good and when birds are being cooperative. So my final attempt, just before the birds finally flew away for the evening, resulted in this shot which is my favorite. The pigeons were backlit so I used a little fill-flash to bring out the soft pink tones of their plumage.