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ID help for Namibian bird (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Sborg
- Start date
It's a Yellow-breasted Apalis, though the throat is also yellow, when it should be white.
I suppose this could be a regional variation or something like that.
But looking more closely at the photograph, it's not very high quality and there are many other strong artefacts - e.g. the leaves
in the background are not blurred as they should be, but streaked in a weird way - so I think the yellow throat may be something your camera's software or your post-camera software has introduced.
I suppose this could be a regional variation or something like that.
But looking more closely at the photograph, it's not very high quality and there are many other strong artefacts - e.g. the leaves
in the background are not blurred as they should be, but streaked in a weird way - so I think the yellow throat may be something your camera's software or your post-camera software has introduced.
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Grahame Walbridge
Well-known member
The throat is clearly yellow so not artefact as you suggest and the 'streaking' you refer to is merely feather (mis)alignment. In N Namibia resident ssp. flavida has a yellow throat ML611672075 - Yellow-breasted Apalis - Macaulay Library
Grahame
Thank you! After you posted I searched for pictures of the species and found a few where the birds had a yellow throat, but only a few. Thanks again!
Dear Grahame and others interested in the photo adjustment aspect of my earlier comment:
The 'streaking' I referred to concerned the leaves in the background and not the bird or its feathering at all, as I thought I had said clearly.
This leaf streaking is quite un-natural and can only be the result of fairly extreme photo processing either in camera or later. Indeed if you look under the bird's tail there is a bit of extreme streaking and a small bit (nearest the tail) which shows less.
And so: I said that the yellow throat could be regional variation, as you have shown it to be; but that it was also possibly the camera software or post-processing software filling in gaps. Modern cameras are fully capable of doing this and there is a lot of 'focus your out-of-focus shots' software out there.
I don't know, but one guess would be that Sborg had an out-of-focus picture and used software to get the bird in some kind of focus at the expense of the rest of the photo.
Indeed some of this streaking is behind the bird (leaves) and some in front (thorns) at least so far as I can see. Look back at the photo in post #1.
So the throat is not 'clearly yellow' in the sense you (Grahame) mean; it could easily be an artefact. But I don't mean this as a criticism. For people who are keen on bird photography, even the most amazing and expensive camera from five years ago is out of date. The Canon R5 with the RF 100-500 lens can track the eye on flying birds and keep them in focus, handheld, leaving aside what it can do with slower moving things.
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About modern cameras.
Here's a handheld video example I took recently with the Canon R5 and RF100-500 and its eye-tracking feature. Don't worry about the visuals (how good the colours are). This is a very very low resolution version of a 4K video original. Look at how the birds are basically in focus all the time because the camera tracks the eye, or the head if it can't find the eye, or the body if it can't find the eye or the head. Five years ago this would have been a miracle.
View attachment Sparrowhawk Crow 240226 S Nara.mov
Here's a handheld video example I took recently with the Canon R5 and RF100-500 and its eye-tracking feature. Don't worry about the visuals (how good the colours are). This is a very very low resolution version of a 4K video original. Look at how the birds are basically in focus all the time because the camera tracks the eye, or the head if it can't find the eye, or the body if it can't find the eye or the head. Five years ago this would have been a miracle.
View attachment Sparrowhawk Crow 240226 S Nara.mov
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Disagree. Looks a bit odd, but presumably just a result of out-of-focus + regularity/alignment of Acacia leaf structure + maybe motion-blur (wind). I don't see a need to postulate any digital photo-artefact.
Disagree. I'm happy that the photo's appearance gives no reason to think there's any photo-artefact involved in the colour of the bird's chin + throat + upper chest - which is all, as Grahame W says, 'clearly yellow'.
I don't know why you would think this rather than the obvious assumption that the camera is just following (the whole of) the moving birds (I wondered if you had posted the wrong video example). (Response to a very off-topic post. I should be quite happy if both were removed.)
I think you are just being silly here. Or just being contrary for the sake of it as (I think at least) you very often are.
As I said, cameras and Photoshop can do things these day. But all I said was that given the - to me undeniable - artefacts of a photo which has been heavily digitally edited, then the chin could have been created in this way also.
But it's a little humorous that Butty 'awful photo (no offence)' Butty is claiming that an obviously extremely edited (whether by the camera itself or even further on a computer) photo is rock-solid safe for colours and other things.
