Rock Pigeons are everywhere - roosting in cities and hanging out in parks and backyards. This makes the pigeon a great bird to practice photography. They are handsome, come in many colors and perform many different areal acts. Taking action pictures of birds is always a challenge. The pigeon is a big size with distinctive markings and a large eye. All of these things make it easy to photograph. This pigeon is performing a mating dance of a female who is not cooperating. This accounts for the blown up look around the neckline.
This picture shows excellent stop action on the head and tail. The flaw of this picture is that the light is on the tail instead of the head and the eye. In bird photography capturing the gleam in the eye is always desirable.
I took this picture of a Rock Pigeon at Quidi Vidi Lake. The shot has not been retouched in any way. It was cropped and represents about 20% of the original photo. I thought the lighting, shadowing and the bright red eye were amazing. All of the elements came together to create this odd looking image.
Pigeons that are frequently fed are very tame and will land on the hand that feeds it or on the shoulder while waiting its turn. As this image shows, some of the antics of the pigeons can be very entertaining and photo worthy.
