Keeping Your Balance...

A couple of male and female Goldfinches have been feeding on the seeds from my Cosmos for the last month or two and I've been trying to get a shot of them hanging precariously from their prey.

Finally, today I was able to catch a few shots while they were flitting about in the flowers. This one really got to me as I watched this young female through the viewfinder trying desperately to keep her balance while her weight took her on a Cosmo roller coaster ride.

Note the tail feathers are off to the left, while the right wing is fully extended. She did this to keep balance while she grabbed on with her feet. The flower stem was moving back and forth rapidly - anyone/thing else would have been tossed off, but she was able to keep her balance by putting the right parts out for counter-weights while rising back and forth on her prey. She got quite a fill of seeds from the flowers and I enjoyed the antics as she fed. I noticed the male was not as agile as the female.

Enjoy!

Treatment was a little HDR to overcome the blur from movement and make the contrast a little more interesting. It also did some really cool stuff to the bokeh in the background. I've noticed other blippers are enjoying some of the newer HDR features as well.