I looked out the patio window a little while ago, and saw a crow taking a bath. I've never been all that excited about crows. They're everywhere, they're loud, they all look the same. But a well-groomed crow is not without appeal. I bet the chicks dig him (at least his do).
I thought this crow looked comical. So I grabbed my camera and took a few shots. Here's the best one:
Even shot through a tinted window, it looked pretty good. After I applied a couple of touch-ups using Gimp, it was a picture I could almost be proud of. Except:
- The stick in front of him ruins the whole picture. It's not something I noticed through the viewfinder, but it is very noticeable in the image.
- The silver vertical bar behind him is a little distracting.
I can't do much about the first item. I put the sticks there for birds to perch on. If I remove the stick, maybe I can reproduce this shot without the stick, but that would defeat the stick's purpose: If a bird perches on that stick I can crop it so that the fiberglass pond isn't visible. It allows me to change the subject's context. So the stick stays.
I can do something about the vertical bar. It's just a tree trunk with foil wrapped around it to discourage my goats from eating the tree. A couple of months ago, I discovered a goat stripping the bark off of that tree. He stripped it all the way around the trunk, top to bottom, except for a 1/4" strip. The aluminum foil made the goat lose interest. I'm still not sure if the three is going to survive. For my pictures, all I have to do is paint the foil light brown, and the trunk would barely be noticeable. So that's what I'm going to do this weekend.
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