In the Field

California Quail Hiding in Thicket. Osoyoos, BC, Canada. September 9, 2006.

I shot this image during a late summer road trip. I was in an ecosystem that I have rarely visited and knew that I might encounter some birds that I had never had the opportunity to shoot before. And, sure enough, we had just stopped traveling for the day and set up camp when a covey of Calfornia Quail wandered by. I grabbed my camera and got my tripod set up just about the time the disappeared into a dense thicket. After waiting motionless at the edge of the bushes for a good 45 minutes it became apparent to me that they weren't about to march out into plain sight. So...I decided to slowly circle the thicket and search for a gap in the branches and hopefully catch a glimpse of the little chickens. Eventually I caught sight of a few blurred bird outlines and a single non-obscured quail head. I knew I had only one real option - I had to attempt to use a strong selective focus on the bird's head and, in doing so, soften up the focus on the distracting branches to the point where they distracted minimally on the final image. So I opened the aperture right up and fired away!

Behind the Camera

California Quail Hiding in Thicket. Osoyoos, BC, Canada. September 9, 2006.

Digital Capture; Compressed RAW (NEF) format; ISO 200.

Nikon D2X with Nikon 300 mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S VR lens (450 mm equivalent with with digital conversion factor) - supported on Gitzo G2220 tripod with Really Right Stuff BH-55 ballhead. VR turned to "On" and in "Normal" mode.

1/40s @ f3.5; no compensation from matrix-metered exposure setting.

At the Computer

California Quail Hiding in Thicket. Osoyoos, BC, Canada. September 9, 2006.

RAW Conversion to 16-bit TIFF, including first-pass sharpening, exposure compensation, and tone curve adjustment, using Phase One's C1 Pro.

All further digital correction on 16-bit TIFF file using Adobe's Photoshop CS2, including additional tone curve adjustment, selective saturation enhancement, and selective sharpening for web output.

Conservation

California Quail Hiding in Thicket. Osoyoos, BC, Canada. September 9, 2006.

Species Status in Canada*: This species is not designated as at risk.

The California Quail (Callipepla californica) was introduced to a variety of locations in British Columbia starting in the 1860's. This individual was photographed in the southern Okanagan valley, where the birds were first introduced in 1912. The California Quail is now resident in appropriate habitat from southern British Columbia south to Baja California. The species is not considered to be under any threat and most populations are reported as stable.

*as determined by COSEWIC: The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada